First schools harass kids who pass up test items, now they're banning certain hairstyles on test days:
The parents of a Norton fifth-grader demanded an apology after a school principal forced the 10-year-old boy to remove cornrow braids he'd put in his hair to copy his favorite Boston Red Sox pitcher. Zach Schwieger arrived at school Monday sporting a hairstyle modeled on that of Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo, said his stepfather, Robert Alves. Arroyo no longer sports the braids but they were his trademark during last year's season when the Red Sox won the World Series. Principal Janice Pomerleau demanded that he go to the bathroom immediately and remove his braids, saying it would disrupt classmates as they prepared to take a standardized test. "It if wasn't test day, he would have kept it,'' Pomerleau said. Zach's parents said Norton's Henri A. Yelle School has no written policy banning specific hairstyles and that they would take the matter to court unless Pomerleau admits her mistake.
I don't think this is something worth going to court over - but neither do I think a funky hairstyle interferes with concentration. The hairstyle is butt-ugly, as far as I'm concerned, but I have a hard time believing that chaos would reign and test scores would plummet had the boy been allowed to keep his hair like this.
Posted by kswygert at May 18, 2005 07:58 PM