Friday, June 21, 2013

Find: Ohio School Bans Afro Puffs and Twists

I was totally preparing to post about something else this fine Friday when I stumbled upon this post on Black Girl Long Hair. In the post I read about an Ohio charter school called The Horizon Science Academy and their new dress code policy that bans afro puffs and (I'm interpreting here) two strand twists. Here are the quotes from the policy.

Afro-puffs and small twisted braids, with our without rubberbands, are NOT permitted.
Also, for irony's sake I will include the line that was a few rules ahead of this one in the policy.
Hair must look natural, clean, well groomed and should not cover the face-may be asked to cut if administrator deems it necessary.
Now, whoever wrote this policy is clearly unaware of the properties of kinky, coily, curly hair. If someone with this type of hair places it into a ponytail *boom* it's a puff! I didn't see a ban on ponytails anywhere in this policy. Essentially what they are saying is that some students can wear ponytails while others cannot. Even a young child could see that this isn't fair.

Also, twists do not disrupt learning--trust me, I'm a teacher. They are contained, hang downward, and give a tired mother a break while their child still looks presentable. Twists meet all of the requirements of the "natural" rule I included. They are natural, clean, and neat. They also keep hair out of a child's face. A neatly done puff fits into this rule even better because the hair is definitely off of the face.

The school definitely needs to rethink this line in their dress code policy and I'm sure they will since the natural community is having it's way with the company behind the school on Facebook. I wonder how they will try to back peddle on this issue.

**UPDATE** 
Concept schools is ON IT! They responded quicker than most businesses and schools would have. They apologized on their Facebook and posted a letter that they will be sending home to parents apologizing and retracting the line from their policy. 

A few folks could take a page out of Concept's book!


                               




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