Little Boy Suspended for Long Hair

[siead_lietrathua]

i just find it sad that they are punishing a kid for growing his hair long when it's for charity.
earrings i can get violating a dress code. but if the kid is doing something charitable the school should be encouraging him.

[Ginger Tea]

i just find it sad that they are punishing a kid for growing his hair long when it's for charity.
earrings i can get violating a dress code. but if the kid is doing something charitable the school should be encouraging him.

I haven't read the article, but normally its shaving ones head for charity not growing it long, unless the whole point is its being shaved/cut once it gets to a certain lenght.

Mind you someone lost their job or got alot of flack after shaving their head for charity.
My brother got his hair shaved for charity, I can't remember when he had it short, but for over 15 years he had it long, or as long as it would grow, since then hes kept it kinda shortish.

I was going to have my head shaved for either comic relief or children in need down at my local, guy in the attic told me about it as his GF works there, I was going to go after doing the laundry, but some twat turned the machine off (it wasn't late or owt) so when I got it out, it was still showing sings of being incomplete and turning it on proved that as it resumed its cycle.
by the time it finished (I was camping the machine this time round) it was too late to even bother showing for a pint let alone a buzzcut.

[Andara Bledin]

The fact is that the mother knew there was a dress code and chose to violate it. Dress codes may not seem fair, but there it is.

In this day and age, you'd think that schools would have learned that you can't have sexist rules. If girls can have longer hair, then so can boys.

Thankfully, my high school had a rather sane policy about hair: It had to be clean and not so outrageous that it was a distraction in the classroom. One of my friends had a 4-inch multicolor mohawk. I'm not certain about earlier schools, however, though I always had long hair, my brother didn't really start growing his long until he was older.

^-.-^

[Lace Neil Singer]

Like I said; if you know there's a dress code which you don't like, then send the kids elsewhere. If you can't afford to do so, then suck it up. I wore a uniform at my first secondary school; however, I got changed into my casual clothes when I got home and guess what, it didn't kill me.

The charity thing seems as tho it's thrown in as justification.

[Nyoibo]

I haven't read the article, but normally its shaving ones head for charity not growing it long,

There's charities like "locks for love" I think it is, the hair is donated to make wigs for people, mostly children I think, who have lost their hair because of chemo, there are some others like that too from memory.

[siead_lietrathua]

There's charities like "locks for love" I think it is, the hair is donated to make wigs for people, mostly children I think, who have lost their hair because of chemo, there are some others like that too from memory.

yep. the article says the boy was growing it for Locks of Love. it also has a quote in it about the schools dress code regarding hair...

"The district's parent-student handbook says boys cannot wear earrings. It also requires they have their hair neat, clean and well-groomed."

as long as he keeps it neat, there isn't anything about length in what was in the handbook, if the article is quoting the handbook directly.

[Jester]

I haven't read the article, but normally its shaving ones head for charity not growing it long, unless the whole point is its being shaved/cut once it gets to a certain lenght.

The article stated that the boy was growing it for Locks of Love. That is a charity that takes real human hair, donated by people, and fashions wigs out of it for people going through illnesses or chemo or such things. To donate, the hair must be of a certain length first.

While it is certainly possible that the Locks of Love angle was thrown in after the fact to justify the boy's hair length, it is equally possible that that was, in fact, what was going on. I have met some very generous, very giving, very caring six year olds, and it would not surprise me greatly to learn that that was not only the plan, but that it was his plan, not his parents.

Just something to think about.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

That crap Mike describes makes me feel extremely stabby.

My husband now keeps his hair fairly short (collar length). He is in his forties but still has a head full of thick black curls. He keeps is shorter now because he's pushing fifty and has enough gray hair coming in with a straight, wild texture he was starting to look like Einstein around the temples. It used to be quite long (think Slash back in the eighties) and he used to have a personal rule that he would not take a job with any company that gave him any shit about his hair.

My husband could care less about having long hair. He kept it mainly because I thought it was hot, and I told him it was okay if he cut it if he wanted to. It's his hair, after all, and if it all fell out tonight in his sleep, I'd still think he's the hottest man alive.

But it made an excellent acid test. He's very, very good at what he does and he's an amazing people person. So he gets job offers when he's not even seeking them. He does not have to work for assholes that have more concern with something as stupid as hair length than they do with someone's qualifications and competency. He has turned down jobs because they said "we want to hire you, but you'll have to get a haircut." If that's the dealbreaker, he'd turn the job down. Not because he didn't want to get it cut, but because he didn't want to work for someone with petty, misplaced priorites.

[AdminAssistant]

"The district's parent-student handbook says boys cannot wear earrings. It also requires they have their hair neat, clean and well-groomed."

They could possibly get him on neatness; in the video, his hair did look a bit crazy. The earring rule still stands. I do think the school should make their dress code gender neutral. The charity thing...eh. I read an article where an exec with Locks of Love said they really don't need hair as much as they need money.

[Gravekeeper]

i just find it sad that they are punishing a kid for growing his hair long when it's for charity.
earrings i can get violating a dress code. but if the kid is doing something charitable the school should be encouraging him.

Doing it for charity doesn't negate the dress code of the school though. Honestly I'm pretty sure the only reason this is even a news story is because she pulled the "doing it for charity" card. She knew the dress code, she knew she was violating the dress code, but thought she could get away with it with the charity card? I honestly don't have much sympathy for her.

Also, Jesus had short hair historically. >.>

[tropicsgoddess]

I had my ears pierced when I was a baby and that's normal in my culture (South America) but here I see it's not all that normal for a baby or toddler to have their ears pierced. I think that was ridiculous they suspended the boy for having a diamond earring and hair past is collar. What is this the 1960's?!!! It's one thing if he had a highly offensive shirt but for long hair?!!! That's like suspending a girl because her hair is short like a boy's hair.

[Gravekeeper]

Honestly, the boy doesn't matter in this. He's not really old enough to understand the shitstorm. It was mom's descision to voluntarily violate the school dress code she agreed to by enrolling him and thinking she could wave it off because its being done for charity. If she had a problem with the dress code, she should bring it up before willingly violating it. Not after they suspend her son and then running to the media for sympathy.

This is all mom's fault. ;p

[Andara Bledin]

Technically, it's all the school's fault.

I'm not saying that the mother really handled it in the best manner possible, but if the snippet posted earlier is what the dress code actually says and isn't missing anything, then the hair didn't break any rules and it was just some jerkoff administrator making policy without going through proper channels.

^-.-^

[AdminAssistant]

The hair may or may not have broken rules; the rule is very broadly written and could be interpreted a number of ways. However, the earring is definitely against the dress code. Again, I do think the rules should be gender neutral, and I can see plenty of reasons to ban earring across the board for the very young ones, personally.

[Gravekeeper]

Yes, I see this as two seperate issues.

1) The dress code. Does it suck? Sure. But I see that as seperate from:

2) Did mom intentionally violate it? Yep. Now she's crying foul to the media.

Both sides can suck. -.-