Advertisement Butler H.S. suspends section of dress code policy regarding students' hair Share Shares Copy Link Copy

A special meeting was held Friday concerning the dress code at Butler Traditional High School.Officials have temporarily suspended the entire section of the dress code policy about student hair.State representative-elect, and former Metro council member Attica Scott spoke out against the policy Thursday, saying, "Stinks of institutional racism."The school-board based rules at Butler previously stated hair must be natural, meaning no dreadlocks or cornrows, and boys can't have an afro longer than two inches.Despite the council suspending the entire section of their dress code concerning hair, parents and students said the damage has been done.Anger intensified after parents and students learned they would not be able to speak or address the council concerning the two pieces of paper."I’m a 4.0 student. Straight A's. My grades and test scores help my school's scores an rankings. I feel that they're not even caring about me," Chayla Ford said.The Butler SBDM council released an amended statement saying that it applied only to males. But that didn't make things any better.“Because it's a part of you and you can't, like, change who somebody is and try to make them do something else," Gendemeh said.But others defended the school, saying it was all blown out of proportion and that policy had always been for males."You all should have asked, you should have asked was the rule for the girls and it would've been all cleared up,” Kameko Cospy said.Parents still said they feel their children were racially targeted, but JCPS says that's far from the truth.Superintendent Donna Hargens said the district doesn't want to infringe on anyone's culture."Everything we do in this strategic plan is about seeking diversity and embracing diversity,” Hargens said.She's encouraging all school councils to review their own dress code policies.Council members said they will be working to create a time and a meeting for parents and students to come and gather and talk. That is one thing that they said that is very important before anything moves forward: communication.