[h1]A West Texas High School Suspended Its Band Teacher for Having a Beard
by Dan Solomon[/h1]
Tue May 5, 2015 3:19 pm

School districts have any number of rules for employees, but some of them are weirder than others. For instance: In Christoval—a small town about 20 miles south of San Angelo—teachers and other faculty who work with students are not allowed to have beards or mustaches. While that’s a curious restriction for a school in Texas to put in place to begin with (what if Chuck Norris applied to teach the kids self defense? What if Willie Nelson wanted to offer guitar lessons?), it’s especially surprising in how inflexible Christoval ISD is in enforcing the rule—at least so far as it relates to band teacher Darrington White.

As KOSA reports:

A small school band teacher is fighting for his job after being placed on administrative leave for having facial hair. The school district says it goes against their policy, the teacher says he has a medical condition that doesn’t allow him to shave.

White has a letter from his doctor confirming that he has a condition called “tinea barbae,” which causes fungal infections when shaving. (Google it, it’s gross.) The National Library of Medicine recommends treating the condition by avoiding shaving in sensitive areas, something that White’s doctor also affirms is the best way to handle his condition at the current time.

Strangely, though, that recommended treatment isn’t flying in Christoval.

...snip

Further complicating matters is the fact that KOSA claims that there are at least two other male employees who work with students who have beards. (The school’s golf coach, Larry Sanders, has been identified as one of them—and here is the Facebook profile of a hirsute Larry Sanders who lives in the town of 500.) The paper notes that neither of those gentlemen have been placed on leave. (The school, for its part, declined to comment to the station about their status.) All of which suggests that there might well be something else going on here.

More here: http://www.texasmonthly.com/daily-post/west-texas-high-school-suspended-its-band-teacher-having-beard