It’s hair today ...gone tomorrow?

By Violet Spader, Staff Writer

May 09, 2008 12:38 am

— What constitutes an ex-treme hairstyle?
According to Karen Heizer, principal at Hoover Elem-entary School, it can be mohawks that stand 5 to 6 inches tall, brightly dyed hair or hair “that’s completely in a mess so people behind you can’t see.”
But Chrissy Ballard, mother of Hoover first-grader Julian Pomeroy, doesn’t see her son’s mohawk as extreme.
“When it’s fully spiked, it’s about 2 and a half inches tall,” Ballard said. “It’s more like a ‘faux-hawk.’”
Ballard said her son was told Monday he wasn’t allowed to wear his hair in a mohawk at school.
Heizer said it’s school procedure to give students a one-day warning if their hairstyle or clothing violates dress code policy.
“The student can go home and explain it to their parents,” she said. “We ask them to fix it the next day, and that wasn’t done in this case.”
If the student comes back to school with the same hairstyle or clothing, Heizer said parents are called.
Ballard said Julian has worn his hair in a mohawk off and on for the past three years; however, Heizer said he hadn’t come to school with the hairstyle before. Previous school pictures show the boy’s hair in a mohawk style, but the hair was much shorter than it currently is.
Ballard said other students at Hoover wear their hair in styles similar to Julian’s.
“I understand if he can’t wear a mohawk,” she said. “I just don’t understand why other kids can wear one and my son can’t. It can’t be a policy for one child.”
Heizer said the school doesn’t have one-child policies.
“Of course we don’t have them,” she said. “There’s a policy for the school so that all children comply and consequences are issued fairly.”
According to the Enid Public Schools elementary handbook, “Hair is to be well groomed and clean. Extreme hairstyles that disrupt the educational process or endanger the health and safety of the students will not be permitted. Students may be required to alter their hairstyles to meet the requirements of participating in ac-tivities or in classes where a student’s health and safety may be endangered.”
The po-licy also allows for school ad-ministrators to in-tervene if a hairstyle — or oth-er dress code issues — causes disruptions to the learning environment, EPS school and community relations director Amber Graham Fitzgerald said.
“Our focus is to keep the environment positive and keep the focus on learning,” Heizer said. “We try to provide an environment where our students are focused on learning and not what someone looks like.”
Ballard said Julian’s hairstyle is part of who he is.
“It goes with his personality,” she said.
Ballard said she asked Heizer if Julian’s hairstyle would be allowed if she cut the mohawk shorter.
“I can’t address that now,” Heizer said. “It depends on how it’s cut down.”