Attorney says he will challenge action

The mother of an 11-year-old boy is outraged after the principal cut her child’s hair with a scissors without parental permission.

The 38-year-old woman told the MIDWEEK NATION that the principal was supposed to remove beads from her child’s hair but decided to cut off the beads instead when she could not get them removed.

She said in some sections as much as four inches of her child’s hair was cut.

The mother has taken the matter to attorney Senior Counsel Andrew Pilgrim.

The incident happened last Wednesday – the first day of the new school term after the Easter break. The mother said she received a telephone call from the principal around 11 a.m.

“She told me that the beads in my son’s hair were not part of the grooming policy and that she would be taking them out.”

The mother explained that she had braided her son’s hair in 12 corn-rows and placed black beads around the braids so that the hair would remain neat.

“That was not the first time that he had worn beads to school and I usually see other children with clear beads in their hair, so I decided to put black beads in his,” she said.

“The principal told me she was taking them out and I said, ‘Okay, m’am, you can take them out.’” However, the mother said her son telephoned her after school sounding depressed and asked: “Mummy, did you tell the principal to cut my hair?” She, in turn, exclaimed: “Cut your hair! I said, ‘No. I told her to take out the beads,’” and he said: “The principal cut my hair.”

The mother said she contacted her cousin who was a teacher’s aid at the school and she confirmed that the boy’s hair was cut and it was uneven.

‘Damage to hair’

“When he came home, I met him at the bus stop. I saw the damage to his hair. I was shocked. I let his father know what was going on and his dad called the principal. I was angry. I already wasn’t feeling well and my pressure was skyrocketing,” she said, adding that the principal gave her son a plastic bag containing some of the hair which was cut and the beads.

The next day she went to the school where she had a meeting with the principal, the senior teacher and another staff member.

“The principal proceeded to tell me that I gave her permission. I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I gave you permission to take out the beads, not to cut my son’s hair.’” She told me that she don’t know about hair. I told her if you don’t know about something, either ask for assistance or leave it out. I told her she could’ve called me back if she could not get the beads removed or she could have asked one of his cousins to take them out.

“She told me that she did not want to involve anybody else and then

they proceeded to tell me that it was just hair and it would grow back. The principal was apologising. She told me she apologised to daddy, but daddy was strongheaded.”

However, the mother said she felt disrespected when the principal started to laugh.

“So, to me, the apology was not sincere because I was like, oh, you apologise and then you laugh at me. This is not a laughing matter.”

The woman pointed out that she had never cut her son’s hair.

“My son’s hair grew with him from a baby. We never put a scissor in his head, not even to clip the ends. I gave the principal permission to take out the beads, not to put a scissors in my son’s hair. She went into a draw and pulled out a scissors and cut my son’s hair. Suppose he gets an infection in his head.”

Filled out form

The mother, who also has two other children at the school and is also a teacher’s aid there, said she went to the Ministry of Educational Transformation that same day and was informed that she would have to fill out a form as no one was available to speak to her. She said up to this day no one has contacted her.

Senior Counsel Pilgrim told this newspaper yesterday: “We’re very concerned about the fact that a young boy can go to school and there can be an issue about his hair and that the way that is resolved is by the principal of the school taking a scissors to his hair and cutting his hair.

“This is not something that we believe should be happening in schools in Barbados. This is something that if this type of issue arises there will be a consultation with the parents in which an arrangement can be made for the boy not to come back to school with the hair in any inappropriate way.

“But the solution is not like going back to the dark ages where people take scissors and cut off people’s hair, especially children. It’s completely unsatisfactory behaviour and we are going to challenge it in every way that we can.”

When this newspaper contacted the principal of the rural primary school, she charged that what the mother had said “was not true”, before adding: “I have nothing to say on the matter. No comment.”

When contacted, Gaynelle Marshall, communications consultant at the ministry, said she would have to check with the relevant personnel about the matter. (MB)