An Indiana principal helped fix a teenager’s bad haircut rather than giving him a suspension when the child wouldn’t take off his hat inside the school building.
Jason Smith is the principal at Stonybrook Intermediate and Middle School in Indianapolis. He took student Anthony Moore under his wing when he was feeling insecure about a bad haircut.
The teen showed up at school wearing a hat, which is against the school’s dress code, and refused to take it off despite administrators’ requests.
Anthony was likely nervous by the time he made it to Smith’s office, but Smith was apparently waiting with a good-natured disposition and an insistence on solving the issue in a positive manner.
Here’s how Smith recalled the conversation.
“I sat across from him and asked, ‘What’s wrong? Why are you being defiant, why are you refusing to take your hat off? It’s a pretty simple request. And he explained that his parents took him to get a haircut and he didn’t like the results.”
Smith said he told Anthony that his hair looked just fine, but said he understood the struggle of a young boy who feels insecure about his hair.
Smith continued — “I told him, ‘Look, I’ve been cutting hair since I was your age,’ and I showed him pictures of my son’s haircuts that I did and some of me cutting hair in college. And I said, ‘If I run home and get my clippers and fix your line, will you go back to class?'” Anthony agreed.
The haircut was fixed and Anthony returned to class without his hat and without a suspension.