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Change Natural Hairstyle or Get Expelled, School Tells 12-Year-Old Girl
yahoo.com ^ | November 26, 2013 | Beth Greenfield

Posted on 11/27/2013 1:24:25 AM PST by grundle

A 12-year-old girl will be expelled from a Florida school unless she gets her hair under control, school officials have told her. Vanessa VanDyke, an honors student and violinist at the Faith Christian Academy in Orlando, tells WKMG that administrators have given her one week to decide whether to cut and shape her hair or leave the school, which she has attended since the third grade.

Faith Christian Academy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Yahoo Shine. And VanDyke’s mother, Sabrina Kent, could not be reached for comment.

But WKMG reports that the school’s handbook includes a section on hair that says it “must be a natural color and must not be a distraction,” stating examples that include mohawks, shaved designs and rat tails. However, notes Kent, “A distraction to one person is not a distraction to another. You can have a kid come in with pimples on his face. Are you going to call that a distraction?"

VanDyke wears her hair in a natural African-American style, which she says she won’t change. “It says that I'm unique,” she tells WKMG. “First of all, it's puffy and I like it that way. I know people will tease me about it because it’s not straight. I don’t fit in.”

She notes that fellow students have recently been teasing her about her hairstyle and it has only become an issue with the school since her family logged complaints about those incidents. Still, if the Faith Christian Academy administrators won’t reverse course, VanDyke says she will go to school elsewhere. “I’m depressed about leaving my friends and people that I’ve known for a while, but I'd rather have that than the principals and administrators picking on me and saying that I should change my hair,” she explains.

(Excerpt) Read more at shine.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Local News; Religion
KEYWORDS: privateschool
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To: grundle

The only thing natural about her hair style is that it is unkemmpt and the only thing negro about it is that it is causing distraction. That bush is a safety hazard; get it caught in a door and listen to the caterwauling.


21 posted on 11/27/2013 3:08:08 AM PST by Lion Den Dan
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To: Little Pig

Or they could ban big hair altogether as a safety issue.


22 posted on 11/27/2013 3:20:30 AM PST by pelican001
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To: grundle

Sorry...the school is right....her hair looks like a birds nest...it is a distraction...

Mom and kid need to learn to live by the rules....

If a white male kid had hair down to the crack of his butt...some issue....

Due to the “sensitive” nature of the complaint. ...as everything now having a racist element...what should be a cut and dried issue....is now fodder for race baiting..


23 posted on 11/27/2013 3:25:58 AM PST by Popman
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To: grundle

I like the hair with the violin. (Imagining Vanessa playing from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.) I am one of those on this forum who remembers classical music being called “long-hair” music.


24 posted on 11/27/2013 3:28:55 AM PST by jimfree (In November 2016 my 13 y/o granddaughter will have more quality exec experience than Barack Obama)
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To: jimfree

I like her hair. Shame on the dimwits at that school for threatening her for it. Her parents ought to send her to a Catholic school instead of a “Christian” school with petty attacks on her natural appearance.


25 posted on 11/27/2013 3:39:54 AM PST by Chainmail (A simple rule of life: if you can be blamed, you're responsible.)
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To: grundle

She’s attended a school with strict standards as fsr as dress and grooming. That her creative hairstyle would potentially become a problem was no doubt understood by her and her parents. If her budding musical talent means that she must have big, lopsided hair then maybe another school is in order? We all make choices. This one is easy. The school or the hair. Pick one and deal with it.


26 posted on 11/27/2013 3:53:11 AM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: Chainmail

I saw the news report on TV, her hair is gigantic, literally 4 feet in circumference. The posted pic makes it look smaller. Kids sitting behind her in class would never see the front wall of the room. I don’t think kids are picking on her because its puffy, its because its way out of proportion and probably annoying. The school policy is clear and they should enforce it.


27 posted on 11/27/2013 3:56:14 AM PST by bigtoona
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To: Little Pig
My good friend from back in the eighties had hair just like this... If she did nothing to take care of it. This girls hair looks clean, but not combed or taken care of. There's got to be snarls throughout. If she just washed her hair and put in a little detangler and leave in conditioner, used a hair pik to settle it down, it would be fine.

If you're attending a religious school, most of the time you are expected to dress and keep your appearance up to certain standards.

28 posted on 11/27/2013 3:59:05 AM PST by MacMattico
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To: arthurus
The school is being silly, at best, but it is not a public school. They can have whatever standards they choose.

You are so correct on both points….which is why this is a toughie to comment on. Private schools, like privatve businesses, should be free to make their own decisions. In this case, it seems like a very stupid decision. Perhaps a touch pharisaical in fact.

29 posted on 11/27/2013 4:00:42 AM PST by C. Edmund Wright (Tokyo Rove is more than a name, it's a GREAT WEBSITE)
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To: grundle

Isn’t that a fire hazard?


30 posted on 11/27/2013 4:02:36 AM PST by Fresh Wind (The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.)
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To: grundle

Private school. Abide by their rules or get out. The hairdo is bizarre ugly and distracting


31 posted on 11/27/2013 4:10:20 AM PST by patriot08 (NATIVE TEXAN (girl type))
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To: grundle

Can we wait to cut the hair until after the birds nesting within have learned to fly?


32 posted on 11/27/2013 4:12:25 AM PST by Vermont Lt (If you want to keep your dignity, you can keep it. Period........ Just kidding, you can't keep it.)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

It is surely that.


33 posted on 11/27/2013 4:19:57 AM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

“Perhaps a touch pharisaical in fact.”

Jesus was a distraction too, and look what they did to Him! This kid is getting off easy.

Seems to me everyone could be a bit more “Christian”. The girl and her parents could recognize and acknowledge the distraction and/or the interference of the other kids view of the blackboard. (Cut it a bit, sit in back, etc.).

The bullies could definitly learn some lessons.

And the school could help mediate things.


34 posted on 11/27/2013 4:20:00 AM PST by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts 2013 is 1933 REBORN)
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To: grundle
Oh, please. PONYTAIL. Just buy a some barrettes and headbands, whatever, and keep it out of people's faces! This is ridiculous. If the Christian school has a rule, it has a rule.

People can't see over her head, it's like wearing a giant hat.

Send the girl to public school with all the bang gangers and let her "express" herself there!

35 posted on 11/27/2013 4:22:48 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: 21twelve

Yeah, I have problems with both sides in this - given the limited info we have.

It seems to me the kid and parents are non-conforming to make a point….all in a school that clearly adheres to proven policies of some uniformity in dress and grooming in a school setting. I mean if non conformity is big for you, and that’s fine, then perhaps choose another school.

The parents and the child also seem quick to run for attention here, instead of trying to solve the problem. There are details unknown to us…having only this one story….


36 posted on 11/27/2013 4:24:58 AM PST by C. Edmund Wright (Tokyo Rove is more than a name, it's a GREAT WEBSITE)
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To: 21twelve

Yeah, I have problems with both sides in this - given the limited info we have.

It seems to me the kid and parents are non-conforming to make a point….all in a school that clearly adheres to proven policies of some uniformity in dress and grooming in a school setting. I mean if non conformity is big for you, and that’s fine, then perhaps choose another school.

The parents and the child also seem quick to run for attention here, instead of trying to solve the problem. There are details unknown to us…having only this one story….


37 posted on 11/27/2013 4:25:14 AM PST by C. Edmund Wright (Tokyo Rove is more than a name, it's a GREAT WEBSITE)
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To: grundle

38 posted on 11/27/2013 4:27:54 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (I don't call "911", in my house, I AM '911"....)
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To: grundle; All

I have family that attend Faith Assembly (Faith Christian Acad church) and have family who taught there. The school is strict but not extreme. The young girls hair is a distraction.

Not sure which part of Africa this girls family is from...but there is no African group with wild hair like that. None

The school has dress codes. Follow them or don’t go there. I bet Faith even offered to give her bands or barrettes to pin back her hair


39 posted on 11/27/2013 4:30:24 AM PST by SeminoleCounty (2014: Real Conservatives Only, Please)
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To: bigtoona

Or they could just seat her at the rear of the classroom so she doesn’t block anyone’s view.

The posters with the negative comments about her hair are unfair: she keeps it clean and natural and she looks quite pretty. She is apparently well- behaved and scholastically successful, so the rest is pretty unimportant, nicht war?


40 posted on 11/27/2013 4:30:43 AM PST by Chainmail (A simple rule of life: if you can be blamed, you're responsible.)
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