Today, the Minister, Francis Fonseca, told us that he believes in this case, it was a misunderstanding, since the principal is new. He said that it is being worked out through communication between MOE and the school's administration.

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"The Chief Education Officer immediately contacted the school principal, the administration to resolve that issue and as I've said over time, many times on the public record, the schools have the right to set certain rules and regulations and guidelines but certainly the length of your hair, the style of your hair is not one of them. So it is absolutely improper and in fact unlawful for any school to refuse a child entry into their school because of the style or length of their hair."

Courtney Menzies:
"In that case then it seems that there's a disconnect between these rule books in schools and the ministry's policy and the law, how do you rectify that?"

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"We have, again, these are resolved through discussions, engagements. In the case of ACC, there's a new administrator there, a new principal, and I think that may have contributed to some of the misunderstandings so no judgement on her, I think she's a very good principal and wants to act in good faith but sometimes we do have this conflict between the church and the state even though we are partners in education, sometimes they want to impose their standards and values on students. We support some of that in terms of reasonable guidelines but certainly as I've made very clear in this particular case, they should understand what the rule is."