School War Over Hair Color?

Recently, a young girl in Delaware was booted from school for having pink hair. Turns out her parents allowed her to bleach and dye her hair a shade called Crimson Storm for getting good grades and school officials deemed such a “non-natural” color a reason to turn her away at the door. The ACLU got involved and a few days later, the girl happily returned to school, with pink hair intact.

Issues like this are difficult for me. I grew up in the Catholic school system and despite popular myths and most teen movies and music videos, our school uniforms were droopy, baggy togs that certainly didn’t garner any second glances. We did however, have a musician in our class who had (gasp) long hair. My school, my strict Catholic school equipped with nuns sporting rulers to ensure proper hemlines (1’’ above the knee!) allowed this one student to discreetly tuck his locks up so he could keep his post-school rocker image intact.

Seems our Northshore School District doesn’t have any set policy against hair color, real or imagined by Clairol, which is probably a good thing. I know my son was completely rocking a purple faux-hawk for a solid two month period, and I also know his desire to experiment with a “rock and roll” do for a while and my willingness to drive him to and the for the fluorescent spray have little to do with his character at large.

I’m glad that our district has better things to do than access highlights and acceptable colors. Sure, there are policies in place about how much skin one can show and, phew, there is specific language about not displaying one’s underpants but I would much rather worry about the quality of the education and the general safety of our children than whether Sally has blue hair.

Hair is such a personal thing, especially for young girls. No matter the length or color or statement they want to make, I think this is one of those instances where you can relax a bit and give some flexibility. I’ve seen our local teens and pre-teens and the looks they are sporting. Clip-in feathers, bright streaks of brilliant color against an unnaturally dark base, shaggy locks that make you do a quick take to see if the Beatles have reemerged from the 60’s. I think they look adorable, though I probably shouldn’t say that directly to them. Somehow though, I do wish someone had stepped in during the early 90’s to prevent me from getting yet another spiral perm with built-in Mall Claw.