After 9-year-old Kamryn Renfro learned that her 11-year-old friend Delaney Clements lost her hair after undergoing chemotherapy treatment for neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer, she decided to shave off her hair in solidarity (of course with her parent’s approval.) Shaving her head “felt like the right thing to do,” Kamryn said.
Delaney was “excited” that her friend supported her by shaving her head so she “wouldn’t be alone with people always laughing at me,” she told KDVR.
The noticeable act of compassion did not go unnoticed when she returned to Caprock Academy on Monday. Jamie Renfro, said in a Facebook post, she was told by Caprock officials that Kamryn was being sent home for violating the school’s dress code policy. In addition, the child wouldn’t be able to return unless she wore a wig to class or until her natural hair grew back.
A statement from the school to the Grand Junction Sentinel newspaper reinforced their dress policy saying “shaved heads are not permitted.” The purpose of the dress code is to create an environment of “safety, uniformity, and a non-distracting environment for the school’s students,” Catherine Norton Breman, president and chair of the academy’s board of directors, said.
Renfro e-mailed the school’s administration to explain the reasoning for allowing Kamryn to shave her head. After the story picked up steam through media outlets, Caprock Academy allowed Kamryn to return to school on Tuesday.
“We are pleased with the decision that our school made to let Kamryn back in school today,” Renfro’s posting said. ”She got up, got ready, and held her head high as she walked into her classroom this morning.”
Wendy Campbell, the mother of Delaney Clements, praised Kamryn’s decision, calling the decision “courageous” and the act “builds character in a child.”
Cancer support groups are hoping this incident will be a “teachable moment” that reminds schools and society that cancer also affects children and “bald is beautiful.”
[Photo: Facebook]