“When the teacher picked up the pair of scissors and chopped off their girl’s beautiful hair, it put in motion a series of events that he couldn’t believe would ever have happened. But the culprits had no idea how far he was ready to go.
It was a morning like any other. Jimmy fixed the final butterfly clip on his daughter’s beautiful curls. Then they scrambled downstairs where his wife was pouring cereal and packing the last bits of their girl’s school lunch. The rest of the day should have been uneventful. He and his wife would go to work and put in the hours until it was time to race back home. They would greet Journey with a huge hug and talk about their day.
But when the kid walked through the door, sniffing and wiping her red eyes, Jimmy felt like he had been punched in the gut. Jimmy stood frozen as his wife sprinted forward and ran her fingers through Journey’s jagged locks. “What happened?” he asked. Journey sniffed again and sobbed, “A student cut my hair.”
He laughed. He let out a long sigh. It was inevitable that little tots would play hairdresser at least once, but this was crazy. He desperately hoped that this was just a one-time thing, but he had no idea what was coming. Jimmy put his hand over Journey’s hair and gave her a big hug. “No kid should cut your hair, okay? Don’t let them, okay?” he said. Journey stifled herself as she nodded in agreement. They rushed her to the hairdresser where they all agreed on an asymmetrical cut.
That should have been the end of things, but it only got worse from there. Telling the school, when Jimmy got home, he called the school and told them about the incident. However, he wasn’t going to push things further than that because it was a fellow student that had picked up the scissors. He also had a stern talk with Journey about letting anyone cut her hair. However, when their beautiful girl walked through the door the very next day, she sported a new, very short haircut that was absolutely absurd.
“What did we tell you?” Jimmy said. “I thought I told you no child should ever cut your hair.” He struggled to control his emotions, but Journey then said, “But Dad, it was the teacher.” Both Jimmy and his wife had to sit down. A teacher was responsible for this hack job, and no one told them. It was a delicate situation. He didn’t want to make his daughter feel like he didn’t believe her, but he also didn’t want to wrongly accuse the school of something so outrageously wrong. If it was true, how could no one even ask her parents ahead of time?
Jimmy picked up the phone and called the principal. The answer would make his blood boil. All they would do was put a small note in her file. Jimmy couldn’t believe it. Phrases like ‘it’s just hair’ and ‘no big deal, it will grow back’ made him want to reach through the phone and punch someone. And the situation only got worse. Not only was the experience of a teacher cutting her hair bizarre, she was also unqualified to do so. But there were knock-on effects too. The next day, kids pointed curiously at her cut hair. Journey didn’t like the attention and went home crying again.
The next phone call would trigger an explosion. Jimmy listened with a slack jaw as the principal said, “What can we do to make this go away?” Jimmy was in disbelief at their flippant response. Were they serious? Did they just want to sweep this under the rug? They still hadn’t even apologized or acknowledged that they did anything wrong.
Jimmy was now beyond livid. Who did they think they were? They acted as if his child’s experience was nothing but a bit of dirt on their shoe. Jimmy couldn’t let them get away with this. He wanted revenge. He sat fuming after he ended the call. How could he make them admit they’re wrong and pay for what they did? An idea popped into his mind. Jimmy knew that if he wanted to make the school pay attention to him and take accountability for what they’ve done, he needed more people to know about what happened here.
Jimmy went to social media and vented his anger. Just as Jimmy predicted, the post went insanely viral. Now the school was forced to acknowledge the violation they ensued on Jimmy’s daughter. The public was outraged at the school’s behavior. Only now, with building media attention, did the school finally take action. And it was just as insulting as everything they had done up to that point.
The school was forced to hire a third party that did a thorough investigation into the matter and ruled that the teacher did violate school policy. However, according to them, it wasn’t really that bad and was completely excusable. The teacher would only get a last chance warning because she had been a model teacher up until that point.
How they determined to deal with it shocked the community. The third party agreed that it would be equally appropriate for the school to give her paid administrative leave. This wasn’t half enough to satisfy Jimmy and his wife. Jimmy watched as his wife bawled furious tears. Even little Journey was having nightmares about her hair falling out.
Jimmy gripped his morning coffee, reading through the interesting email that had just arrived in his inbox. By now, his story had spread nationwide, and agencies in his local area were even more furious at the lack of real repercussions the teacher faced. He read through his emails and found a notification from the National Parents Union. The National Parents Union wanted to help them. The fact that the school was doing nothing, only apologized when the world found out, didn’t matter. They had broken the rules on a national level.
Jimmy talked to the National Parents Union. They wanted to set up a GoFundMe page for him. They agreed with his sentiment that this case needed to be made an example of. The Union set up a GoFundMe page, and Jimmy saw the donations pouring in. And all of it would go to a specialized legal team. When they asked what Jimmy wanted, he didn’t even have to think. “A million dollars,” he said. He knew the number was outrageous, but he also knew that hitting groups in their wallets was the only way to affect change.
The school, it seemed, was ready to fight back. Jimmy and his wife seethed as they read the school’s response. “We will aggressively defend against these baseless allegations in court and will not allow this to distract us from our mission to provide every child a world-class education that prepares them for college and careers.
The school district had wanted to roll the dice with the federal court. So be it. They had transferred Journey to a different school, but that didn’t mean they were giving up. Their little girl’s hair was part of her identity. Yes, her hair would grow back, but the memories would never go away. Even Jimmy and his wife still had faded memories of school that still jab at them once in a while. They had no idea who he really was. He was someone not to be underestimated.
While his wife was in Mama Bear mode, he was also going to bear his claws and not stop fighting. The school wasn’t sorry at the start, but they were soon going to regret not picking up the phone and asking them in the first place, like they should have.
Jimmy’s lawsuit stated alleged that the school failed to properly train, monitor, direct, discipline, and supervise their employees and knew or should have known that the employees would engage in the complaint of behavior given the improper training, customs, procedures, and policies, and the lack of discipline that existed for employees. His attorney declared that the incident and the school’s response was unacceptable. They were going in hard.
