Posted on 03/28/2015 7:46:30 AM PDT by Salman
There is nothing quite like the petty despotism of the public school system. A boy from McMinnville, Tennessee, was suspended after coming to Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary School with a haircut deemed inappropriate by the principal. It was a "high and tight" military-style haircut that the boy had requested so that he would look more like his step-brother, an active-duty soldier.
The principal did not budge, leaving the boy's mother no choice but to shave his head so that he could come back to school.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
The remedy for an extreme cut is to shave their head? How extreme is that?
I agree. I was going through some old photos of mine the other day. My older brother had somewhat a “shag” style haircut during his high school days (and it was a Catholic boys school). Mine.. well.. let’s just say the 80’s had some wild hair. I went through Aqua Net hair spray like it was water. BIG and POOFY was the style then. Not one nun said a thing other than they found the styles “interesting” (Catholic High school). Behavior and grades were the top priority for them.. not the current hair style.
the story doesn’t mention what the problem with a high and tight haircut would be
No, a child’s hair is not the parent’s prerogative. A school, like a business, has the authority, and the responsibility, to set grooming standards for both students and employees.
If your child had to sit next to another child whose parent rolled him in dog feces every day before sending him to school, that would just be the parent’s prerogative, right?
The problem in this case is that the rule was misapplied, even after being challenged, and the principal deserves all the grief that followed. And it sounds like it was a considerable amount. The first requirement for any principal should be a healthy respect for common sense. That would go a long way toward eliminating these inane events.
Possibly true. My main beef is that public schools think they have a right to override parental decisions at all. Personally, I think a short haircut on a child is awful looking, but either way, it is not the public school's right to decide dress and hair.
>>This is child abuse of the worst kind!<<
I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of people abused as children who would disagree with you on that one. It wasn’t pleasant for the child, certainly, but hardly the worst kind of child abuse.
>>This is child abuse of the worst kind!<<
I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of people abused as children who would disagree with you on that one. It wasn’t pleasant for the child, certainly, but hardly the worst kind of child abuse.
A PUBLIC SCHOOL is NOT a private business and has NO authority to override a parent's dress and hair decisions. Health standards can cover your feces red herring example.
>>This article is nothing but an inflammatory distraction from real issues. <<
No, the real issue here is that a principal needs common sense. Too many today don’t, including this one. Such people can cause an unending amount of grief to both the employees they supervise and the students and parents they serve.
An authority figure with no common sense and a thick rule book becomes the “real issue” quite often.
I agree with you. In my anger, I overstated the case.
Nonetheless, it was a despicable thing the principal did to that boy and there is no excuse for it. He should lose his job over this.
vid of original haircut....
http://nypost.com/2015/03/27/school-named-for-war-hero-forces-child-to-shave-military-style-haircut/
So a public school isn’t a private business, so what? Both have the authority to set standards and both do.
You don’t like them, then don’t patronize them or work for them, or else work to get the standards changed. But a public school has as much authority as any business to set grooming standards. If they become overly zealous about it, there will be push back, of course.
Try telling a lawyer that a public school can’t set grooming standards and see what he thinks of your theory, because that’s what it is; it isn’t fact.
>>The remedy for an extreme cut is to shave their head? How extreme is that?
We asked for Zero Tolerance policies. We got Zero Tolerance policies. Any time a person says, “there should be a law (or rule)”, they need to get slapped in the face. If they try to form an HOA to “improve property values”, their house should be burned to the ground and then you drive them to the state line and tell them to never come back.
It boggles the mind to ponder the fishbowl world these
public school administrators reside in. What on earth
would cause this particular administrator to think she/he
could create a shitstorm without having to deal with a
tremendous blowback? And, what other idiotic things has
this principal done in the name of education?
This from the home state of Daniel Boone, Alvin York and Andy Jackson.
Really? Where in the Constitution does it say that government entities can tell people how to dress?
Geez, from one overstatement to the next.
No, he shouldn’t lose his job over this. However, he should certainly be chastened by the experience. And if the superintendent has already written him up for a few other obvious violations of common sense then, yes, he should probably be removed from his position.
A principal with an ounce of common sense would have listened to the parent’s explanation and either made a decision on the spot that the haircut wasn’t a mohawk, or would have let things be while pursuing a policy clarification with the board. And if a majority of the board ruled that his haircut remained in violation of policy, you’d see a brand new school board at the voters’ first opportunity, particularly when you consider that the school is named for a Medal of Honor recipient.
Gee, I don’t think it’s in there. I don’t think there’s anything in there about cars either, yet I’ll bet you don’t drive around without a driver’s license while blazing through red lights anytime you feel like it.
Sadly, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, all have our crummy liberals and many are in our schools. Running our schools. This is probably a paragraph in that core teaching crap program that requires watching out for this.
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