Principal Tells Girl to 'Tuck in Her Hair'

Perth Amboy, NJ - A principal of a Perth Amboy Catholic school has apologized to a 10-year-old girl who he told to "tuck in her hair," the girl's mother, Damaris Isales, told Patch Tuesday.

The incident happened at the end of February at Assumption Catholic School in Perth Amboy. As he readied the children for prayer that morning, school principal Michael Szpyhulsky told Isales' fifth-grade daughter to "tuck in her hair" in front of many other students. His comment deeply upset her daughter, Isales said, and the girl later ran into the bathroom crying.

Assumption has a strict dress and appearance code, and standards are listed on the school's website. Among the rules for hair are: "Extreme hair styles such as spikes, Mohawks, shaved heads/scalp designs, gel hairdos, long or straggly hair (i.e. covering the eyebrows), coloring or highlighting, excessive hair ornaments, extensions, hairpieces, or male facial hair, are never permitted," the school writes.

But Isales, 37, said her daughter's curly locks are not trying to be fashionable — that's just the way her hair is.

"This is her natural hair. She is not trying to be fashionable. She just has curly, puffy hair," said Isales. "Trust me, it already takes me long enough to do her hair every day. If I were to do something like straighten it, that would take two hours."

Mom asks diocese for an apology

The girl also told her mother she was being bullied about her hair.

"Some girl was making fun of her, saying it looked like a beehive," Isales said. "I went to the school in the morning to talk to the principal because I was really concerned about the bullying."

But the meeting did not go well: "He said, 'Her hair was all over the place. It was in her eyes. And there's no Afros allowed. That's a policy; that's why we have uniforms.' And I told him again and again, 'This is her natural hair. There is nothing I can do about it.'"

He also, "talked down to me," she said. "He tried to dismiss me and talked to me like I was an ignorant person."

Isales said she was most upset by the whole thing because she thinks Szpyhulsky did not handle the situation professionally: "He should have spoken to her privately that day, not in front of her whole class. He should have reacted differently when I told him she was being bullied. And he should not have talked down to me."

Isales said she was so frustrated that she wrote a letter to the superintendent and the Diocese of Metuchen, of which the school is a part of.

"After that meeting, I kept thinking he would call me and apologize. Nothing. That's when I wrote the letter to the diocese. And I also contacted (radio station) NJ 101.5."

Calls by Patch to the diocese and Szpyhulsky were not returned.

An apology

As soon as she reached out to the media, and NJ 101.5 reported the story, Isales said Szpyhulsky asked to meet with her, and her daughter, again.

"This time he apologized. He said it was a learning experience for him. He said he was very distracted that morning and that's why he spoke the way he did," she said.

He also said the girl who teased her daughter will be punished, she said.

"I think he was speaking from the heart. I just want to move on now," Isales told Patch.

It's hard, she added, to find a good school for her children.

"I pay $340 a month to send her to private school and it's a sacrifice for me," the mom said. "But I put my daughter in private school for a reason: The middle schools here in Perth Amboy are very, very bad. There's a lot of bullying and fighting. I wanted to avoid all that drama so I chose Catholic school. And then this happened."

Photo of Isales' daughter used with permission by Damaris Isales.