A Michigan father has moved his 7-year-old 2,000-year-old daughter from one school to another after the child was cut on several occasions by a classmate and a teacher.
Jimmy Hoffmeyer said Monday he is also considering taking his daughter, Jurnee, out of Mount Pleasant public schools and enrolling her in a private school.
On March 24, Jurnee from Ganiard Elementary arrived home with lots of hair cut on one side. According to her, a classmate used scissors to cut her hair on the school bus, Hoffmeyer told The Associated Press.
Two days later – after complaining to the principal and having Jurnee’s hair styled at a salon with an asymmetrical cut to make the different lengths less obvious, Jurnee arrived home with her hair on. the other side.
“She was crying,” Hoffmeyer said. “She was afraid of getting into trouble because she cut her hair.”
“I asked what happened and said ‘I thought I told you that no child should ever cut your hair’, he continued. ‘She said’ but dad, that was the teacher. The teacher cut her hair to straighten it. ”
Hoffmeyer said the explanations he received from the principal and the district did little to appease him.
The school called after the bus incident and “said the little girl stole the scissors from the teacher’s desk, and they would talk to the parents and deal with it accordingly,” he said.
Later, the principal told him that most of what can happen to the library teacher is a note in her work file, Hoffmeyer said.
“She said she did not have the power to do anything,” he added. “She kept asking me what she could do to make it go away.”
Hoffmeyer said he submitted an incident report to Mount Pleasant police, but as of Monday, no officer has contacted him to follow up on the charge.
Hoffmeyer said he received a call from the district superintendent about a week later after the school’s spring break. She offered to send “excuse” cards to the family, he said.
“I got angry and hooked,” Hoffmeyer, black and white, said. Jurnee’s mother is white.
“I’m not one to try to make things racial,” he said. “I almost only grew up with white people.”
The girl who cut Jurnee’s hair is white. The teacher who also cut it is white, said Hoffmeyer, who has two more daughters, ages 8 and 4.
Mount Pleasant is about 241 miles northwest of Detroit. About 4% of Mount Pleasant’s 25,000 residents are black, according to the U.S. Census.
Hoffmeyer works with the National Parents Union, a national network of parent organizations and activists who work to improve the quality of life for children.
District Superintendent Jennifer Verleger confirmed in a statement late Tuesday that Hoffmeyer’s story confirmed, adding that the child’s teacher was aware of the library worker’s plan to cut the student’s hair. The haircut was done without the permission of the student’s parents or consultation with school administrators.
“Regardless of their good intentions, this action was unacceptable and shows a lack of judgment on the part of our two employees,” Verleger said in a statement. “Both are being reviewed for further disciplinary action in accordance with school policies and procedures.”
Publisher added that she personally apologized to the student’s family.
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Williams reported from West Bloomfield, Michigan.
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This story has been corrected to show that a voicemail was left Monday afternoon to comment on Ganiard’s principal.