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HAIR RAISER

Dad’s outrage as school librarian who cut his seven-year-old daughter’s hair KEEPS their job

A DAD was outraged after a school librarian cut his seven-year-old daughter's hair and wasn't fired.

The staffer was accused of performing a "modern-day scalping" after she hacked away at the child's hair.

Jurnee Hoffmeyer cried after a teacher cut her hair
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Jurnee Hoffmeyer cried after a teacher cut her hair
The white student and teacher cut the biracial girl's hair
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The little girl had her hair cut by a student and then a librarian

Jurnee Hoffmeyer's dad, Jimmy, said she came home from school with one side of her hair cut off.

The seven-year-old told Jimmy that a student had cut her hair on the school bus with scissors stolen from the classroom.

Jimmy then took Jurnee to a hair salon who evened out her locks following the March 24.

However, two days later, Jurnee returned home in floods of tears with all of her long curly hair cut down just inches from her scalp.

The youngster said that her library teacher was behind the trim.

“She was crying,” Hoffmeyer explained. “She was afraid of getting in trouble for getting her haircut.

“I asked what happened and said ‘I thought I told you no child should ever cut your hair,’” he continued.

JImmy and Christie Hoffmeyer say the school needs to do more
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Jimmy and Christie Hoffmeyer were upset over the incident

“She said ‘but dad, it was the teacher.’ The teacher cut her hair to even it out.”

On Friday school board officials claimed: “It’s clear from the third-party investigation and the district’s own internal investigation that MPPS employees had good intentions when performing the haircut.

“Regardless, their decisions and actions are unacceptable and show a major lack of judgment. The employees involved have acknowledged their wrong actions and apologised.”

“We truly appreciate the support and patience by our students, staff and families while an independent, third-party investigation was conducted regarding an incident at Ganiard Elementary School,” the Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education said in a statement on Friday, .

“As your board, we have made every effort to address this matter with the seriousness and care it deserves and with the transparency our community expects.”

The librarian was issued with a warning and two other employees who were aware of the incident but failed to report it have been officially reprimanded.

Jimmy said neither he nor his daughter were questioned as part of the investigation.

“Who did they talk to?” Mr Hoffmeyer asked on Friday when the results of the investigation were announced. “Did they really do an investigation?”

Jimmy took Jurnee out of the school and enrolled her elsewhere after she was "traumatised" by the incident.

A midwest delegate for the National Parents Union Bernita Bradley, who is working with Mr Hoffmeyer, described the incident as a racial attack, branding it a “modern-day scalping.”

Jimmy is biracial and Jurnee's mom is white, the librarian is white.

The NPU is working to raise awareness of the Crown Act, a bill that bans race-based hair discrimination, which is already law in some states.

“I’m not one to try to make things about race,” the father, who is black and white, said.

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“I’ve pretty much grown up with only white people, myself.”

“Our kind of hair, you can’t just wet down and cut it because, and that’s when I feel like they should have, even if they were trying to do it in the kindest of their heart, once they seen the outcome, they should have been like, ‘Yeah, we messed up,’” he told  

Jurnee had previously had shoulder-length hair
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Jurnee had previously had shoulder-length hair
Father’s fury after teacher cuts his seven-year-old daughter’s hair without permission and left her in tears
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