Thursday, February 07, 2008

Another case of "Push out" - School says don't color your hair

FatcatPaulanne brought this to my attention: a student was kicked out of school for 'distracting hair.'

"A Louisville mother is making claims of discrimination after she says her daughter's hair color got her kicked out of a school.
Fatimah Osborne got her hair braided and colored over winter break. The hairstyle cost her $300.
However, the principal at Carrithers Middle School said the student had a non-traditional color and that's against their rules.
Administrators from Carrithers middle school told Fatimah to change her hair or she'd have to leave the school, permanently.
The principal says red hair is okay but they say this hair color violates their dress code.
Fatimah's mother says that's crazy
. "

I agree with the mother. This is crazy. The daughter picked a normal color, one other girls have naturally.

But the school bureaucracy has rules. The bureaucracy has decided that in addition to trying to give children an education, they are going to decide what color the student's hair can be. I would have thought the parents should be the one in charge.

Teachers wonder why parents don't have more respect for public schools. I wonder how any parent could respect a principal who enforced this dress code. In fairness the principal may have had little choice. I don't know what kind of latitude he had. But I'm sure many parents upon hearing this roll their eyes and lose a little respect for the public schools.


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Technorati tags: public school, public education, education

3 comments:

ChristineMM said...

Thanks for blogging this. I left a comment at the news site you linked to.

This is a bit too controlling to me.

I am bugged by overly dyed blonde hair with black roots showing. Is that allowed as the blonde is a "natural" color? Do they allow hair highlighting in streaks and stripes as some women, even professional adult women wear their hair (which is ugly in my opinion and distracting)?

I get it if they are trying to not have bright pink hair or green or blue. But if I really think about it I can't believe they have a rule against hair color.

When I was in school in the mid-1980s we could not wear anything above the knee including dressy Bermuda shorts and mini skirts. We got sent home. However they wanted the cheerleaders to wear the mini skirts and bare legs on game days.

I think the schools need to concentrate on academics.

Sprittibee said...

You submit your children to the state (state schools), you should not balk at submitting to their rules... right? That makes sense?

The bigger question here is - why put your kid in the state's control in the first place? :) They can have any color hair they want at home. Of course, there are much better reasons to keep them home, though!

The Reluctant Homeschooler said...

$300 spent on a hairdo is money that has been thrown away, spent on frivolity. Why not put the same money to good use - helping someone, not spending it on vanity?? The school should be teaching values, and Lord knows that some schools try, but the world has so encroached on the schools that weird hair, shorts, skin-tight clothes, and other distractions, especially to our teen-aged boys, are "normal." I don't think so...