Melrose school board will review hair policy

When a Melrose High School sophomore keeps the promise she made to the school board and sits down with a stylist this weekend, her mother says it shouldn’t feel like a loss because she stood up for something she believed in.

“It was a good learning lesson,” Jerri Kline said Tuesday about her daughter Meghan’s fight with the school over hair color.

“I told Meghan, ‘You won on the fact that you learned something. You learned that if you want to change something, try it. Don’t just sit there and say, wish I could, would have, should have and never do anything about it.’”

Monday night at the Melrose school board meeting, Meghan agreed to dye her hair back to a natural color after her fire-engine red streaks ran her afoul of school policy last week.

In exchange, the board promised this summer it would review its policy prohibiting students from having unnatural hair color.

Superintendent Ron Windom said the board will review the policy sometime in May or June and will hold a public forum.

He said the board is always open to consider input from parents and students and was more than willing to take the matter into consideration.

“We look at policy relatively regularly, whether it’s formal or informal,” he said.

Jerri Kline said Monday night’s meeting was positive. Her daughter was treated with kindness and respect by the board. She said it was a valuable lesson in how to make changes.