In Michigan, a father is enraged after her daughter went home from school with tears in her eyes because the teacher chopped her hair off.
Jimmy Hoffmeyer said that he removed his daughter Jurnee, 7, from Ganiard Elementary school after a white teacher and student cut her hair at separate events.
The school fuelled Hoffmeyer’s anger when they failed to provide an explanation for why his daughter’s hair was chopped.
The father is now thinking of moving Jurnee out of Mount Pleasant Public and transfer her to a private school.
According to Associated Press, Jurnee first went home from school on March 24 with her hair chopped on one side. She told her parents that a white kid cut it when they’re on the school bus.
Hoffmeyer then brought her daughter to a hair salon to fix it so that the length will not look visibly different.
However, after two days, the girl went home again and this time, the other side of her hair was cut.
“She was crying,” Hoffmeyer said. “She was afraid of getting in trouble for getting her haircut.
“I asked what happened and said ‘I thought I told you no child should ever cut your hair,’” Hoffmeyer continued. “She said ‘but dad, it was the teacher.’ The teacher cut her hair to even it out.”
Associated Press reported that a library teacher cut Jurnee’s hair but the school said that teachers cannot be disciplined.
Jurnee’s dad said that the school did call him after both incidents but he doesn’t believe they had done enough.
Hoffmeyer claimed that the school refused to show him a video or even explain to him exactly what happened.
He said that after the student cut his daughter’s hair, the school contacted him and said “the little girl stole the scissors off the teacher’s desk, and they were going to talk to the parents and deal with it accordingly.”
As to why the library teacher decided to chop the second half of Jurnee’s hair, Hoffmeyer said that the school did not provide any reason and did not do anything about it.
“She [the principal] said she didn’t have the authority to do anything,” Hoffmeyer said. “She kept asking me what she could do to make it go away.”
Hoffmeyer also received a call from the district’s superintendent but he “got mad and hung up.” He said that the superintendent suggested mailing “I’m sorry” cards to them.
“I’m not one to try to make things about race,” Hoffmeyer, who’s a bi-racial, said. “I’ve pretty much grown up with only white people, myself.”
“Our kind of hair, you can’t just wet down and cut it because, and that’s when I feel like they should have, even if they were trying to do it in the kindest of their heart, once they saw the outcome, they should have been like, ‘Yeah, we messed up,’” Hoffmeyer told WTOC.
Hoffmeyer reported the incident to the Mount Pleasant police but had not received any update yet, and the family is now working with the National Parents Union as they require a full apology from Ganiard Elementary school.