Beating around the beard Beating around the beard

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A student has been suspended from Pāpāmoa College for having a beard despite it “representing his family’s culture”.

e college’s principal Iva Ropati, who started in October 2022, introduced new rules at the start of the year including a facial hair ban, with cultural exemptions applying.

A student and his father have contacted e Weekend Sun on the basis of anonymity after the son was suspended.

“I’ve had facial hair for the past three or four years I’ve been at this school,” says the student.

“It represents my family’s culture.

“All the men in my family have facial hair, and it reminds me of them and our strength.”

Two options

With the new rule, the student claims his school is giving him two options “either shave or leave school” and he was recently suspended for a week-and-a-half due to his beard.

His father says: “I had to pretty much beg them to accept him back but they put conditions on”.

e student says: “I’m not actually allowed in class. “I have to sit in an o ce and do all my work in that o ce. I’m not allowed out at breaks or lunchtime”.

e Sun asked Pāpāmoa College’s principal Iva why the facial hair rule was created. “At the end of last year our board went out to our parent community and asked them some key questions about what they’d like to see changed; and overwhelmingly the parent community said that we needed to lift standards and raise achievement,” says Iva.

Asked whether the parent community speci cally asked to ban facial hair as part of lifting school standards, Iva stated: “ ey didn’t speci cally state facial hair – no, but any part of lifting standards around uniform, how they present themselves, how they feel and look – a big part of that is increasing the level of pride and that did come through from parents”.

e parent says they’ve had a couple of meetings with the school about their son’s facial hair. “I’ve complained to the board explaining my reasoning but the school replies: ‘I don’t know your culture. We’ve never heard about that’...‘we need a formal letter from a cultural leader’.” Iva says: “We have an application process for any students who feel as though they have some grounds for exemption, and so they go through that process of making an application and we’ll look at each case on an individual”.

Shouldn’t have to e parent says they’re getting an o cial letter from a representative from their country, yet they feel they or others shouldn’t have to go to these lengths. “It’s not fair to the others to deserve this …like all the other schools like Te Puke College, or Mount Maunganui College are doing the opposite, and scrapped that rule from the beginning because they say these rules are segregating the students.

“It’s not just about facial hair. It’s what he believes, it’s deeper and his roots, and I don’t think he needs to explain himself.”

**Read this story in full at: www. sunlive.co.nz

Georgia Minkhorst

tauranga@baywidecls.org.nz www.baywidecls.org.nz