BARLETT, Kan. -- There's controversy at a Kansas school after a teacher shaved the head of a 6-year-old boy because of his haircut. Derby McReynolds had his hair cut in a short Mohawk. Bartlett school officials said that was unacceptable, and sent him home.This goes beyond lawsuit. This goes well into Buford Pusser territory where you walk into the school totin' a 2X4 to smack some sense into people. I haven't the faintest idea what was passing for thought process in these peoples' heads when they decided to take it upon themselves to forcibly shave the head of a six year old child...
His parents trimmed the boy's hair to what they said resembled a military cut. The next time Derby went to school, the principal had a faculty member shave the boy's head.
Especially given that the parents had already aqcuiesced to the school's ultimatum and shaved the boy's head themselves. The "offending" mohawk was gone; what was left was a standard "Boy's Regular" haircut, completely and utterly standard fare for an elementary school boy at the start of summer. Heck, we shave TheBoy down around this time of year as a general rule, and we've even been known to let him choose a mohawk.
My feeling is, given his genetic history, he ain't gonna have hair for very long, so he might as well enjoy it while he's got it...
And if some pinhead "educator" thinks he's going to manhandle my child in some sort of grotesque power play, well, he'd better hope and pray that a lawsuit is the outcome. He'd better hope that I'd rather have the district hand over the keys to the new "Jay G. Elementary School" than have him commit seppuku...
Someone needs to lose their job over this; they should ideally be banned from having any contact with children and, if they haven't procreated already, undergo mandatory sterilization...
That is all.
12 comments:
I think the kid's father would be perfectly justified in carrying a set of clippers to school and headshaving the teacher who committed the act on his son. Offer him a choice: a headshaving or an asswhipping.
Change "clippers" to "McCullough chainsaw" and I might agree...
I grew up in a town not much bigger than Bartlett and I expect that the media report on it makes it sound much worse than it is. I don't agree with what happened, but I would hesitate to pass any judgments without the whole story. Unlike the East Coast the kid probably knows every teacher in the school, and if he doesn't have a relative on the school board his parents almost assuredly know all of them, and probably have at least one or two over for cookouts during the summer.
Probability this goes to court IMO is less than 1%.
Here are some quick stats for the town:
Population 124
Households 46
Median household income 36K
This is Podunkville USA. Dad will probably settle it at the bar over a beer.
My best friend from junior high is ready to make heads roll at her son's school, and all they did about his mohawk is send him to ISS.
(And really, I've seen pictures of this boy's "mohawk" and all the hell it is is a strip of hair left a quarter of an inch longer than the rest of his hair, which is shaved down almost to nothin'.)
I can imagine what she'd be doing if someone shaved the boy's head!
I honestly do not understand why schools are so damned uptight about hairdos anyway. God knows I went to school with kids with flattops (the Kid n Play kind, not the 1950s white-guy kind), designs razored into the sides of their heads, kids with blue hair, kids with spiked hair etc, and we somehow all managed to get educated still!
Idiocy. Plain and simple.
I'm with Sabra, I don't understand why the schools are so uptight about shit like hair styles.
I'd be "shaving" something besides a head... but that's just me...
Bob, why is that an either or? Both are in order.
Since when are Mohawks bad? I don't remember if my son ever had one, but he had damned near every other whacky hair style. Especially a six year old kid.
Sorry, Jay. They don't encourage self help.
And it's for our own good.
TheUnpaidBill, your stats don't mean they didn't do something wrong. They mean that if they really did shave this kid's head against his will, it probably really was because of some personal issue that had nothing to do with his haircut.
I don't know what the "controversy" would be; controversies have two sides. Who in that town is saying, "Well, maybe they had a durn good reason to shave a kid bald because they didn't like his haircut . . ."?
In fact, I'll go this far: I bet the kid is a pain in the butt in some way. He probably has an attitude, and the parents may have one to match. The school may be tired of dealing with them.
Still doesn't justify this. IF a student is violating a dress or appearance code, you send him or her home until he or she complies. If the parents don't care enough about the kid's education to hurry up, get him in compliance and send him back to learn something, that's frustrating, but it's their decision to make. What you do NOT do is hold a kid down and violate his person. And if that principal and that "faculty member" don't want to be personally liable for this, they'd better be sure there's a specific policy against his haircut. If not, they're personally on the hook along with the school district.
Isn't a forcible haircut what caused John Rambo to go berserk in First Blood?*laughs*
This is why it's a good thing I don't have kids myself. Think I'll post something over at my place on it...
If Don isn't right and his parrents aren't asses they'll put the settlement into a trust fun and Boy will get to go to college of his choice loan free.
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