HIGH SCHOOLER PREVENTED FROM GROWING HAIR TO HELP SICK SISTER

A student in Texas has withdrawn from his high school after administrators asked him to cut his hair. 16-year-old Newt Johnson began growing his hair out after his 11-year-old sister, Maggie, was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease. The condition, called Wegener’s disease, caused Maggie to undergo chemotherapy and dialysis — and lose large portions of her hair. Newt then had decided to grow his hair out so it could be turned into a wig for his sister. According to CNN, Poth High School, Newt’s former school, has a strict hair policy. The school forbids boys’ hair from growing “beyond the ear opening on the sides nor beyond the top of a dress shirt collar in the back”. Johnson went on to drop out of Poth High and began homeschooling while continuing to grow his hair. He says administrators told him the week before Martin Luther King Jr. Day that if his hair “wasn’t cut by Monday then [he] couldn’t come back". According to Poth High administrators, Newt would not have been expelled if he refused to comply. Paula Renken, the district’s superintendent, says Newt likely would have received detention or in-school suspension. The Poth Independent School District also says it has raised more than $3,000 to help with Maggie's hospital bills