Teen gets dress coded for highlighting her hair
A Texas teen is facing in-school suspension for getting her hair highlighted. Now, her family is fighting the school district’s over its dress code.
According to KAUZ, student Kristyn Hess and her mother, Angie Watson, didn’t anticipate any issue with administrators at Graham Junior High School when they went to the salon to get Hess’ brunette hair highlighted blonde. But when Hess went to school for the first time with her new color, the school’s principal Ginger Robbins allegedly wasn’t pleased with the change and said that “any drastic change was allowed.”
“...she said it’s OK that it’s a natural color, but it’s not OK with the way it is, having the brown and then the blonde,” Hess told the new station, explaining Robbins’s alleged complaint.
The Graham Independent School District’s dress code outlines “Inappropriate grooming,” which consists of “Hair coloring or bleaching for the purpose of creating extreme differences in color, shade, or tone between sections of individual strands of hair or areas of hair on the head.”
However, Watson told KAUZ that other students at the school have their hair highlighted — and her daughter’s hairstyle is no different.
“We brought up, highlights are highlights,” Watson explained. “Anybody that gets highlights is gonna have a difference. Brown hair with blonde highlights is going to be a difference.”
According to the mother, what’s even worse is that she wasn’t contacted by the school directly, but instead found out about the violation through her daughter. Watson quickly followed up with the district’s superintendent, who seemingly disagreed with the junior high principal’s decision.
“I contacted Robert Loomis, the superintendent. He went to the school Thursday, saw her, called me back and said he didn’t see any problem with her hair,” Watson said.
Loomis cited the district’s dress code when asked to comment, while Robbins has yet to respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s request. However, Watson told KAUZ that Robbins said it wasn’t her who had a problem with the hairstyle, but instead another teacher that pointed it out.
Now, Hess reportedly still faces in-school suspension, which Watson has concerns about, especially since her daughter already struggles with dyslexia.
“That’s a concern for me, that she’s going to be stuck in a room, handed papers and if she needs help she has to wait for someone to come help her and it’s not even going to be her teacher, over hair, hair!” Watson said.
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