Stuff.co.nz took to the streets to ask whether or not having beard stubble at high school is acceptable.

A mother fighting Hornby High School's no stubble rule has pulled her 16-year-old son out and enrolled him in correspondence school.

After a two-week standoff between the Christchurch school and Kay Peebles over its no stubble rule, the boy - who Peebles does not want to named to protect his job prospects - was enrolled in the online school on Thursday.

She believed the clean-shaven rule used to send her stubbly-faced son home on April 30 was "archaic, discriminatory and sexist", and sought advice from lawyer Jol Bates, who won a judicial review into the suspension of long-haired St John's College Hastings pupil Lucan Battison, 16, last year.

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* Let the schoolboy keep his beard

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Bates earlier said the stubble case was "practically identical" to concerns he raised in the Battison case about whether a school had the authority to create rules about a person's body. On Thursday he said he assisted Peebles to get her son back to school, but had no more instructions.

"It's a disappointment that someone's education gets curtailed simply because they might be infringing on a rule thats lawfulness is highly questionable."

The law stated that a school could keep a student away from school indefinitely, he said.

Peebles said she was finally told by principal Richard Edmundson that her son could come to school unshaved but there was a "process", including detention every lunchtime and Sunday.

She earlier understood she could not enrol her son in any other school until Hornby High either suspended or expelled him, but since learned that was not necessary.

Peebles felt she "didn't really have a choice" but to fight the rule, but she did not have the money to "fix this political problem".

"Anyone should question a rule that makes no sense and [schools] can't really give an explanation as to why it's there."

Her high-achieving year 12 son's facial hair "was never going to get like bushman style or anything".

"[Edmundson] just wanted us out of there to be honest, we're causing him too many problems. He's not losing a ratbag, he's losing a good mind."

"I'm not going to send my son somewhere that's making him miserable and oppressed."

Her son was ahead in some classes, so catching up online would not be a problem, she said.

After this year, he could even consider enrolling in the more liberal Hagley College if it had room on its roll.

"I feel quite liberated, not being held down by the system."

Her son was happy, but sad to leave his classmates behind.

"My son gets to be himself and get an education."

Edmundson refused to talk in detail but confirmed Peebles had chosen to sign her son out of the school.