Cutting Student's Hair Not in the Job Specs

In Michigan, a teacher cut a seven-year-old girl’s hair. A student had snipped the girl’s locks days earlier,  leaving her head with a very uneven look. Taking the girl’s plight to heart, the teacher released her inner coiffeur and tried to compensate for the tonsorial damage.

However, she never spoke to her parents about restoring the imbalance. WHAT?! I’m not sure what her intentions were, be they maternal or underlying, but most teachers know not to violate a student’s person. The teacher might have asked the girl, but seven is not the age of consent for anything. You don’t cut hair, clip fingernails, paint toenails, pierce ears, or otherwise alter kids’ bodies. You can’t even put a hand on a student’s shoulder these days.

She and just about everybody in the district is being sued by her parents. Two other teachers knew of the incident but never reported it. They are now in hot water for not coming forward.  Let’s hope the school interviews the student who originally did the cutting and find out what’s going on there. This could require student disciplinary action, guidance counseling, or some intervention to ensure the well being of the student perp and the victim. Not to mention the adult.

I’m curious to find out how the school managed the original incident. There seems to be a scarcity of reporting on that, but such incidents could be indicative of issues deeper than a youngster’s prank, such as a hostile relationship or friendship gone sour. That’s why a thorough, multi-pronged approach is necessary in such cases. We have student-on-student and teacher-on-student aspects  here.  It’s not just about the what, but the why and the what now. And that has long term  implications for all involved and the larger school community.