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 ...
A private school is a private school.
As BO would say... period.
Imus is too busy to comment on this one. He’s considering legal action (okay maybe not but he HAS commented on the double standard) regarding MSNBC’s support for Martin Bashir’s misogynistic “potty mouth” fantasies.
Indeed, look at an 80’s yearbook from a public school. Lot of hairspray, pumped up, etc. 80’s yearbook from a Catholic school? No way.
But, then going back to my era, the girls in my catholic school had beehives up to the door top, lol. (I’m not sure why, but the Italian girls were masterful at how tall they could get their hair!). There was so much hairspray going on, it permeated the classrooms. Heck, the girls even carried a can in their purse! While the public school girls had short hair (which was considered “fringe” and un-lady like).
Every thing is cyclical I reckon.
But still, a private school is a private school. If you don’t like their rules, take a hike.
“This girls hair did not get to this point over night!”
Not necessarily true. She could have been tying it back and decided recently she wanted to bush it out.
“Does the school have a written hair policy?”
They say that they do, in the handbook, clearly stated. This is kind of like someone moving into a neighborhood with a homeowners association, then complaining about the rules. Or my kids friends coming into my home and telling me they don’t like my rules. If you don’t like ‘em, get the hell out.
BTW, I can still fondly recall the smell of Aqua Net, and how romantic it smelled.
Funny, how after so many years, certain senses illicit certain memories.
“But still, a private school is a private school. If you don’t like their rules, take a hike.”
Sounds pretty clear to me but some people seem to think the world revolves around them. They don’t conform to the world, the world conforms to them.
I have been told many times that blacks do not get lice. Lice have a hard time attaching to the hair. I don’t know if it is true, but I have heard that all my life.
all hair is a magnet for lice.
Ain’t that the truth.
There is a very real lack of racial understanding here.
Black girls and women have to spend an inordinate amount of time working their hair, just to make sure it doesn’t fall out.
When you see an African-American woman wearing cornrows, it isn’t to make some fashion statement. It’s one of the few hair styles that allows her to engage in sports and not risk losing her hair.
It goes beyond being dry, to include kinks and brittleness. Caucasians don’t have similar problems.
Her hair looks as though it took her 30min-90 minutes to prepare in a ‘natural’ fashion, meaning she didn’t use oils and sheen like treatments,...which are used to avoid loss of the hair or becoming too brittle to brush.
IMHO, she has done what she can, to the point that she is risking losing all her hair. Then she should file a lawsuit against the school for damages.
I applaud her parents for not falling into this ridiculous notion that she needs to straighten her hair or keep it under “control.” She's a child, and it looks very clean even with the blurry pic. Given it's a pic of a student playing a violin, I would think her parents are also very concerned she have every academical advantage possible.
From the limited information, it appears that the school is punishing the kid for the parents complaining about her being harassed about her hair.
Not sure why the cut isn’t considered “natural”, or if the problem is the “distraction” part of the equation.
You are correct. The school is private and has the *right* to require this, but it is *wrong* for them to actually do so.
Doesn’t she have a race card?
See post number 19. Judging from your post, all black women that manage their hair should be bald.
AWESOME hair! Quite beautiful!
Huh?
It is a PRIVATE school. They choose what they want to do. Anything else is gov’t busybody meddling.
Post 17 shows them in cornrows.
Many white conservative establishments group that as eccentric hair. If the school allows it, it’s a favorable alternative.
Look into the Black “Hair relaxer” industry if you doubt my perspective. They didn’t become millionaires from White clientele.
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