7 year old kicked out of school for mohawk

link

Miller said the solution is easy for Dallas' parents. Tulia's dress code states: "Hair should be neat, clean and well-groomed. Style or color should not be extreme to the point of creating a distraction."

The boy's porcupine-like cut caused a distraction, principal Johnny Lara said.

"All the students were commenting and going on about the hairstyle," Lara said. "It was very visible."

I would think that this would be one of the school's least worries in a world filled with problems of guns and knives and drugs. But a MOHAWK?

It may not be my personal preference for me or my son, but it is just a haircut, something that will return to "normal" with time. I am sure that this haircut DID create some discussion amongst his classmates, but if left alone, I am sure that the "sensation" would have died down within a day or two and nothing would have come of it.

So now, with this kid kicked out of school for a 2nd time, isn't he more of a "distraction" than he was with the haircut? I think so.

His parents are now in danger of truancy charges, and if they don't shave his head or come up with a more suitable haircut, he could be held back a year for the haircut.

Man, what a load of hogwash.

JDub

Yet another waste of time and effort busting on people for things that are of no fscking consequence. Whats funny is that the school's dress code makes this a sort of cycle because anything different is a big suprise to them since different is against the rules. If they said "hey, as long as its not dangrous we dont care" then this would cease to be an issue, but I guess thats out of the question. Funny part is most people grow up eventually and realize that having such outlandish hair-styling is counter-productive to careers and being taken seriously by the world, so why not let the kid enjoy it while he can since soon enough he will be graduating college and looking for a 9 to 5 where the "Cant Have" list is far longer than any schools' list.

My friend wore purple braids and the school said either he takes them out or he was not allowed back in the school. This was his lat year so he had to take them out and they cost him £70-80 pounds. I think it is Pathetic.

How in the world can a hair cut or braids effect a persons education and for that matter any other students??? It doesn't. Pathetic...

Oni x x

I had a tiny stripe of blue once... I got suspended for four days... (They seemed to expect me to wash it out in the middle of the classroom somehow...)

Came back and a girl had copied me, though with a more visible streak as she was blonde, my hair is dark. She never even got it menchoned to her

Lol. i can't believe they did that. to get home i go from the alterative high school i go to, to the middle school ,were i switch buses...but any way at the middle school this 6 th at the oldest 7 th grader had on some short that had to be 4 in long, im really not kidding they were some short shorts... she looked like a hoochie...well im though but i agree with you hair should be the least of their worrys...although i did almost get exspelled the 3rd day of my 8th grade year because i refused to tuck in a tshirt...mind you not a dress shirt a unisex t shirt...

That's totally bovine fecal matter.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but was'nt there a supreme court case in the 60's or 70's, where the supreme court said that students could wear hairstyles however they liked, and that the school's did'nt have the right to tell kids they had to have their hair a certain way?

From the source:

"All the students were commenting and going on about the hairstyle," Lara said. "It was very visible."

Just like they do about shoes, jeans, shirts, jackets and everything else.....

But it is school policy, in black and white. So it might be best for the student to grow or shave his hair.....just to avoid the student being held back or suspended, the parents and school can sort out all the legal crap matters later. If the parents have the childs best interest in mind that's what they would do, imo.



[edit on 30/3/2006 by SportyMB]

I am not sure about the court case in support of the parents' position, but I agree with the last poster that I would go ahead and shorten the haircut or do something with it to get the kid back in school. That is the most important thing to me if it were my kid, that he is in school, learning. Then I would take it up with the admin or the superintendent to straighten it out.

JDub

How about this one!

My daughter was told not to have her hair coloured other then a NATURAL colour..........the teacher simply CUT THE COLOUR OUT!

aND...........Told off for coloured eye contacts.....
and.............for wearing a Cross to a R.Catholic school.

helen.

Damn it, why cant they do whatever they want TO THERE OWN BODY.

Its just plain stupid that you can't wear and have these things

Back when I was in school, I had some braids in my hair. They must have reached down to my backside.... I had to take them out later that day due to an evil biology teacher. :bash:

I didn't, and still don't, see what the problem was, they were the same colour as my natural hair. Surely if it was my real hair, they wouldn't have told me to cut it?!

*sigh* They were well cool.

The schools should be allowed to do this sort of stuff to maintain a respectful atmosphere in the classrooms. Having crazy coloured hair, whacky insutling and provacative t-shirts, and all the rest, are distractions. Yes, there are definitly bigger problems, but perhaps this school is a relatively sedate one and they don't want things to get out of hand.

Also, for what its worth, 7 year olds don't express themselves. A 7 year old is in 2nd grade or thereabouts. They get dressed by their parents, so whats it matter?

Hmm I like the idea of freedom and I can honestly say that I am not personally offended by such appearances but on the other hand I can remember not all that long ago that such styles did not exist in civil society and this is a recent form of expression.

So nobody can say that they have some long entrenched right to do this cause it ain't so.

conform or suffer


way to go public education system /golf clap/

another battle against communism won.

Cut the hair then whats he big deal, I'm sure the parents read the rules before they sent him to that school anyway.

[edit on 13-4-2006 by Panzeroth]

Panzeroth -

That is a part of the story that wasn't covered - whether the parents knew the rules and disregarded them. My local school system here makes changes to the rules before each school year and then prints them in different types of media. The parents then receive at least one copy at the beginning of the school year when signing the kid(s) up for school. It is the parent's responsibility to make note of any new changes.

Nygdan -

I disagree that a 7 year old doesn't express himself. My youngest son who is 9 years old has picked out his own style of shoes for the last several years. I have the final say on what he gets (no thin tennis shoes in the wintertime, etc.), but just like the other day, we went shoe shopping and he chose "Keds" shoes because they are in-style at his school. He also has had a preference for the last two years for button-up shirts that have large designs on them like dragons or wolves. This, too, is considered in-style by his peers.

I don't really care much one way or the other because neither his shoes nor his shirts are pricey name-brand stuff, it is just the way that he likes to dress.

I do understand the point that was made earlier that the school may be a conservative school where such haircuts are not accepted at all.

I want order and respect in my children's schools, just in this case I think that school brought more attention to this situation by suspending the child twice and threatening to expel him than what it is worth over a simple haircut.

Cheers,

JDub

Do you actually think that this kid decided, in the seven years that he's been on the planet, that a mohawk was a sensible idea, and that it wasn't the parents who actually had it cut that way?

Kids aren't just mindless things that parents dress, sure enough, but they don't fret and worry about social representation and having designer brands or about getting mohawks, and if the school tells them to cut it, they don't reflect upon the relative values of social rights and personal responsibilities, nor about the need to express one's self, even through a hairstyle, in order to make a personal statement about non-conformity.

They can't even spell conformity. They're second graders.

Lol, 7 year olds do indeed express themselves. When I was 7, I too had a mohawk, and that was my decision, not my parents dressing me.

I thought it was pretty funny when I looked over at a lady in a car and she reached over and locked the passenger-side door.

I wasn't suspended, and I was going to a Catholic school at the time. I guess it just depends on the teacher.

Nygdan -

No, it wasn't sensible, it was a reward.

My son started having emotional problems about three years ago when I got really sick, was spending alot of time in the hospital and he overheard my wife and my MIL talking that the docs didn't know if I was going to live or not. He shut down at home and at school.

We dealt with it the best we could the first year (1st grade) with me actually going to school part of the day with him to force him to participate in the work at school instead of sitting and playing with erasers all day. By the end of the year, he was starting to snap out of it. His grades were improving and his participation was up.

His personal goal was to get on the A-B honor roll, so we asked him what reward he wanted if he made it onto the honor roll. He said, "Mohawk." We pooh-pooh'ed the idea of a mohawk as I am relatively straight laced and the wife is too. None of his friends have had a mohawk, he doesn't watch the type of tv where he would see people with mohawks, so we didn't know where he got the idea and thought he would drop it relatively soon.

2nd grade year, he struggled and got his grades up to A's, B's and C's, but he couldn't seem to make the honor roll. We received his last grade card after he was out of school. A's and B's. He made the honor roll.

We asked him again, "what do you want as your reward?"

"Mohawk." After a year and a half, he still wanted the same thing.

So, at the beginning of this school year (3rd grade), we took him and got him what he wanted. We didn't do it specifically to coincide with the school year, but things weren't very good with my health that spring or summer so it was one of the things that got pushed back for a while.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Kids aren't just mindless things that parents dress, sure enough, but they don't fret and worry about social representation and having designer brands or about getting mohawks, and if the school tells them to cut it, they don't reflect upon the relative values of social rights and personal responsibilities, nor about the need to express one's self, even through a hairstyle, in order to make a personal statement about non-conformity.

No, he doesn't reflect about social rights and personal responsibilities. He thought it was a fun haircut, something different than he has ever had before. And it isn't about non-conformity. It was what he wanted as a reward for working his bottom off to get what he set as a goal - to be on the A-B honor roll.

With your statement about "designer brands" and such, either your school is very different or you don't have children in school. Money informally denotes "who" a person is here because most people don't have any in this area. My son is the one that points out the three or four kids in his class of 19 that have the money and come to school bragging about how many new video games his mom or dad bought for him the day before. He points out how many new shirts or types of shirts that the kid brags about on the playground. He sees these same kids on the balldiamond with the new glove, the new bat, the new gloves, the new helmet, the new cleats and then he asks me why I can't do the same for him.

But that is okay. It gives me an opportunity to explain to him that we don't have to have the newest, the best, the most expensive to be the person that we really are deep inside. A pair of Nike's won't make him any different than a pair of Ked's will, but that extra $40 that I saved on the Keds can go toward a field trip or clothes as he grows or just he and I doing something special.

He notices social things. He is aware of it. He understands (and oft forgets) that it is okay not to have the biggest and the best.

Our particular school does not have a policy in place like the school in Dallas does for their dress code. Yes, my wife took him and got him that particular haircut as a reward. It was not inflicted upon him, and it was a one-time thing. He loved the haircut while he had it, but when it grew out enough that we had to shave it again or cut his hair all the same length, we cut it all the same length. He looks back on it with fondness, but he hasn't asked for another mohawk.

Cheers,

JDub