Piercing lands student in hole lot of trouble

DEAN KOZANIC/The Press

LIP SERVICE: Jamie Darrell has been stood down from school because of his lip piercing even though it is covered.

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A Christchurch teenager fears his NCEA exam marks will suffer after being stood down from school over a lip piercing.

Jamie Darrell, 16, was stood down from Shirley Boys' High School on Tuesday night after refusing to take out the stud.

Jamie said he covered the piercing with a plaster but this was not acceptable to the school, which removed him from classes for five days.

The school said Jamie's refusal to remove the stud was a "harmful or dangerous example" to other pupils.

"He's quite p..... off at the moment because this is really knocking his preparation for NCEA [the National Certificate of Educational Achievement]," Jamie's father, Andrew Darrell, said.

"I think it's completely ridiculous that they think Jamie walking around with a plaster on his face is dangerous or harmful to any other students."

Darrell said his son got the piercing on Sunday, with money he gave him for his 16th birthday.

He could not take it out for six weeks, otherwise it would close up.

He said Jamie was a good pupil and the piercing was his only one. "It's not like he rattles when he walks," Darrell said.

"This is a school trying to exert their authority over a young adult, and it's detrimental to his education."

Shirley Boys' High School principal John Laurenson said the rules were simple.

"The father can have an opinion, and I respect that," Laurenson said.

"[But] the school has policy and procedure, and as far as facial piercing is concerned, it's very clear.

"If a boy contravenes the regulations that have been set by the school and have been accepted by the parent ... then that's a harmful example to other students."

Laurenson said he did not know of any boy who had been allowed to break a school rule without consequences.

"What we have is a young boy who has decided that the rules don't apply to him. Well, frankly, they do and if he's not happy about that, then he's got lots of choices."

Canterbury-Westland Secondary Principals' Association chairman Denis Pyatt said schools were entitled to make rules on piercings.

"The whole piercing thing is less significant than it was. I think it was a fad," Pyatt said.

His own school, Papanui High, "did not make an issue" of piercings, except for health and safety reasons.