I was wondering if any other people had heard of the young women from Brisbane who has been suspended from a well known Kedron girls college for shaving her hair in recognition and awareness of Leukemia ( in addition her father has been diagnosed with Leukemia and latest news as I write this is dying from this condition). From media reports after the 6pm and 7pm news reports this young women apparently in year 10 ( and I would presume dealing with end of year exams ) has been suspended on the grounds that she has breeched uniform protocols. The things this young woman is going through I cannot experince but only imagine as too much.I would like to seek opinons in relation to this . In this so called Christian /social justice /caring environment cannot the school give the young woman a break or at least some leaway ?? The School concerned please have a heart acknowledge her and her family's courageand honesty to the awareness of this cruel disease. In the big picture what has she done so wrong to deserve this . I belive she should not be punished for supporting her father nor her actions.
the thinker

The thinker,

Christian or not I think ON THE SURFACE (this also allows for TV beat up, distortions etc) the school went over the top. More background FACTS are needed to be sure.

I can understand the school wanting to avoid setting a precedent for the 'idiotic tokenists' and a flurry of 'worthy' cause extremes.

Notwithstanding this still seems to me the school had better options given the time of year. By all means remove her from class but suspend?

Compassionate leave and separate exams would have been my reaction as the school head. This girl is clearly hurting and is trying to come to grips with more than any child should

Agreed. More background is needed to make a relevant comment. With such scant information it is impossible to know what transpired between her and the school. At one extreme she may have shaved her head and just turned up at school and informed them of what she was doing and told them about her father. At the other extreme she might have told the school she wanted to shave her head without giving a reason and was told not to and they didn't know about her father and might have turned up and used a few choice words when they rebuked her.

A few months ago, another teacher was being lauded by the media for implementing a policy of zero tolerance -six hundred suspensions in a year!

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25763347-3102,00.html

I too think there is more to this than meets the eye.
After seeing the poor girl and her mother interviewed on the 'Today Show" this morning, I got the impression that this girl is no angel and has been in trouble for other issues recently.

I agree though that in the circumstances, the girl should not have been suspended from school. Often the kids quite like suspension anyway.

Far better to help her through this hard time by keeping her life as normal as possible outside her sad home-life with her sick father.

As a Christian school, I would have expected more understanding about her actions.

Can it be explained how someone shaving their head can help an ailing person ? If shaving one's head translates to making money then why doesn't the government promote it ? We could save the economy & Bingo !
What the crux of the dilemma is in this case is the fact that the average indoctrinated chalkie is charged with upholding protocol. Now some kid turning up to class with no hair obviously distracts & thus cause the poor mutt of a teacher do do what it is supposed to do. Uphold protocol !
Can't the girl do something for her poor dad with hair ? On one hand she's grieving but on the other hand she has got time for gimmicks.