Father 'Outraged' After Teacher Cuts Biracial Daughter's Hair

Detroit MI

20 April, 2021

5:51 PM

Description

MT PLEASANT, MI — Jimmy Hoffmeyer still has more questions than answers about the day his 7-year-old daughter, Jurnee, came home from school, heartbroken and missing most of her golden curls. On March 24, another child cut Jurnee's hair on the school bus on her way home from Ganiard Elementary School. Two days later, after Hoffmeyer took the little girl to a salon to get an asymmetrical cut to make the differing lengths less obvious, Jurnee's hair was cut again. This time, it was by a teacher at Ganiard Elementary School, where Jurnee was a student. Little Jurnee wasn't the first child to have her hair cut by a teacher. In 2018, a California teacher lost her job after cell phone video showed her forcibly cutting a student's hair while singing out an incorrect rendition of the national anthem, CNN reported. A year later, a New Hampshire middle school teacher cut a chunk from a female student's hair because she wouldn't stop playing with it. In Texas, a mom told "The Today Show" her son's high school gave him an unwanted haircut because his bangs violated the school dress code. But precedence provides no answers for the Hoffmeyer family, which is now considering moving Jurnee out of the Mount Pleasant School District, according to a report by The Associated Press. "She was crying," Hoffmeyer told The AP of the day Jurnee came home with the haircut. "She was afraid of getting in trouble for getting her hair cut." On March 24, Hoffmeyer discovered that Jurnee, who is biracial, had her hair cut by another student on the school bus on her way home, he told The AP. He took the little girl to a salon, where she got an asymmetrical cut to make the missing hair less noticeable. Two days later, Jurnee came home with the other side cut. Hoffmeyer, who is also biracial, said he has received little explanation from the school district. Hoffmeyer told WJRT in Flint that he received an apology, but the school won't show him provide video or any other account of what happened either on the bus or in school. "I would like them to own up to their responsibilities," he told WJRT. "Like, we've been asking as a public apology, for the most part, to let Jurnee know that, yes, they acknowledge that it was wrong and that it should have never been done and that she should never have been through something like this." Jurnee is now enrolled at a different school, according to WJRT. Hoffmeyer is also working with the National Parents Union in hopes of receiving a formal apology as well as consequences for the teacher who cut Jurnee's hair.