The case surrounding a Black student who was suspended from his school in Texas last year because he refused to cut his locs began with ongoing discipline, escalated to a full civil rights lawsuit, and now, it’s drawn the personal reflections from the district superintendent himself.
Barbers Hill Independent School District Superintendent Greg Poole wrote a critique in a full-page advertisement to the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board over an article the board wrote about 17-year-old Darryl George and the continued punishment the teen faces over his hair.
Why was a full-page ad purchased just to get this message out? Poole alleged that the Chronicle refused to print a letter he wrote in 2020 to criticize the paper’s guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic. So the Barbers Hill ISD Education Foundation bought the ad so Poole could publicize a response to how the paper has covered recent developments in the district’s handling of George’s suspension.
“How poignantly ironic that the Chronicle criticizes limited dress code conformity that is correlated to student success yet wholeheartedly sanctioned complete face-mask conformity that is still questioned today as an adequate defense against COVID-19,” Poole wrote. “These clear-cut errors in judgment are explained by the Chronicle’s need to do more fact-checking and less fact-blocking.”
Poole defends Barbers Hill ISD’s actions during the pandemic and how it maintained in-person student instruction despite county guidance to preface his full critique of how the paper has covered the controversial case surrounding George, his hair, and the district’s dress code.
In that critique, Poole cited the increase in the number of African-American students who have enrolled in the district since 2021 and the district’s history of appointing African-Americans to the school board, none of which has anything to do with George’s case.
He also pointed to different military academies…
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