Kindergartener With Mohawk Suspended From School

Newsnet5 (Cleveland WEWS-TV) ^ | February 27, 2008

[E Rocc]

PARMA, Ohio -- A kindergarten student with a freshly spiked Mohawk haircut has been suspended by school authorities who said the hair was a distraction for other students.

Michelle Barile, the mother of 6-year-old Bryan Ruda, said nothing in the Parma Community School handbook prohibits the haircut, characterized by closely shaved sides with a strip of prominent hair on top.

"I understand they have a dress code. I understand he has a uniform. But this is total discrimination," she said. "They can't tell me how I can cut his hair."

An administrator at the suburban Cleveland charter school first warned Barile last fall that the haircut wasn't acceptable. The school later sent another warning to her reiterating the ban.

Mohawks violate the school's policy on being properly groomed, school Principal Linda Geyer said. Also, the school district's dress code doesn't mention Mohawks, but it does allow school officials to forbid anything that interferes with the conduct of education.

Ruda's hair became a disruption on Thursday when Ruda arrived freshly shorn, Geyer said. Administrators called Barile on Friday telling her to pick Ruda up from school.

"This was his third infraction," Geyer said Tuesday. "We felt that we were being extremely patient."

Rather than request a hearing to appeal the suspension, Barile said she'll enroll him at another school. Changing the hairstyle is not an option, she said.

"It's something that he really likes," Barile said. "When people hear Mohawk, they think it's long, it's spiked, it's crazy looking, and it's really not."

[ktscarlett66]

Ah. The few charter schools in my area run like private schools. Uniforms, very small classes, and they can pick and choose who attends. They’re all, except for one, administered by private groups (a church, a local college) and unlike public schools, they don’t have to accept anyone.

[HamiltonJay]

As a student of both public and private schools and active in both to this day I can tell you, the “behavior” problems in private schools are nothing compared to public schools.

The students who get expelled/asked not to return from the private schools I work with, fit right in in the public schools who do nothing about them at all.

I don’t care if a school is public or private, school is about education not self expression, uniforms are part of an overall discipline and philosophy. And students and parents who think their kids right to be disruptive supercedes everyone elses right to a good education, are people I don’t want my children’s schools wasting time on.

I deal with public and private schools and the kids of both to this very day, and if you think public schools and private schools have the same issues when it comes to childrens behaviors and discipline, I just have to disagree completely.

[Tired of Taxes]

The students who get expelled/asked not to return from the private schools I work with, fit right in in the public schools who do nothing about them at all.

The key is, the public schools have to accept them, whereas the private schools do not.

And students and parents who think their kids right to be disruptive supercedes everyone elses right to a good education, are people I don’t want my children’s schools wasting time on.

Good for you. But, in this story, the school is a public charter school. It can exercise some control over behavior, dress, etc., but not the same amount of control a private school can because charter schools are gov't-funded.