For many students, the graduation ceremony is an important graduation ritual, recognizing their achievements and celebrating the end of a chapter. In a Sydney suburb last week, some tenth graders had to involuntarily miss their graduation ceremony – the school refused them participation because they wore acrylic nails or colored nail polish.
According to the “Mackellar Girls School” in the suburb of Manly Vale, the affected schoolgirls violated the school’s requirements for external appearance. According to Australian media reports, instead of being called on stage in front of their families like their classmates, they were divided into different classrooms where they should have watched the Christmas film “The Grinch”.
There is disagreement about exactly how many students were excluded from the ceremony. According to media reports, parents report more than 57, sometimes even 70 students. According to The Manly Observer, the New South Wales Department of Education confirmed that 57 students were not allowed to attend the ceremony, but said that for the majority of the girls, being late was the reason. Only 20 girls were denied participation because of dress code violations. Parents present at the ceremony dispute this version.
A mother told “The Manly Observer” that the ceremony was initially delayed by about an hour because of the disciplinary measures taken against the girls, and at first nobody in the room knew why. Then several students would have called their parents from the classrooms to tell them that they were not allowed to come into the hall. The school staff is said to have never informed the parents about the situation.
After protests from parents, some of the students were finally allowed to stand and watch the assembly from the back of the hall. However, they were not allowed to come onto the stage, and their names were not read out when the certificates were awarded. They only received the certificates after the ceremony. A mother told News.com that the school acted as if the girls didn’t exist.
In addition, according to reports from a mother, the students were apparently divided according to the severity of their violation of the dress code. This means that students who also wore false eyelashes had to stay in the classroom, while some students who only wore light-colored acrylic nails were finally allowed to go into the hall and at least watch the ceremony.
Many parents of the students have no understanding for the rigorous approach of the school and expressed their anger on social media. The measures are cruel and not up to date, it said in some comments. A mother wrote in a letter of complaint to the school that she was ignoring and destroying the girls’ years of academic achievement. One mother told 10 News First Sydney schools should be more flexible on appearance rules. Fingernails said nothing about a person’s academic performance or personal characteristics.
According to the New South Wales Ministry of Education, the schoolgirls were informed in advance about the demands on the clothes and the appearance of the schoolgirls and were also explicitly informed about the specifications for fingernails. However, the mother of one affected student told Yahoo News Australia that the students had previously been assured that as long as their nails looked natural, there would be no problem. Only “unnaturally colored” nails were communicated as taboo, which is why many of the affected schoolgirls had extra “French Nails” made – nails in a bright design.
In an e-mail from the headmistress, which the Manly Observer has seen, she is said to have informed the parents that the concerns expressed about the school’s actions would now be investigated.
Quellen: “Yahoo News Australia”, “Yahoo Life”, “News.com Australia”, “Manly Observer”, Twitter, Facebook
