Student's extension leaves school with hair-raising problem

A parent of a student attending a north Galway secondary school has taken umbrage as his daughter being asked to remove coloured hair extensions.

But the school has a policy which asks students to refrain from using extreme colours in their hair when attending class.

And the principal of Dunmore Community School said that the teacher in question was only abiding by school rules when asking the student to remove the hair extensions.

But parent Giuseppe De Francesco describes the rule as outdated and prevents the students from freely expressing their personality.The incident occurred last week when his daughter Sakura De Francesco arrived in school with four coloured hair extensions. She was asked to remove them and refused. Her parents were then contacted.

Her father then told her to comply with the request but he was not best pleased at having to do this. He said that he did not see how hair extensions could be a breach of uniform rules, as he was told.

Gay McManus, principal of Dunmore Community School, told The Connacht Tribune that it was school policy that female students are expected to wear their hair in a neat and tidy fashion. They must to refrain from the use of extreme hair cuts, colour and dyes (blue, orange etc.). Hair must be tied back if requested.

Mr. McManus explained that any student in breach of the rules will have the matter addressed with them.He said that he could not discuss an individual case involving any student but stressed that the teacher was merely implementing one the school rules. 

But Mr. De Francisco said that the students of Dunmore Community School were forced to behave insincerely just to comply with some old style interpretation of the rules. 

“It is an interpretation which tries to keep the school life in a different century. I do agree that some uniform rule shall be in force but the extreme interpretations of these rules are just ridiculous”, he added. 

See full story on page 9 of the Connacht Tribune