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New barbershop opens at Franklin Middle School for free student haircuts in Cedar Rapids
How trims are doing more than making kids look good
Nov. 4, 2023 5:45 am
CEDAR RAPIDS — On Monday, a symbolic, oversized pair of scissors inaugurated a new chapter for a room in Franklin Middle School where many pairs of smaller scissors will make a greater impact.
While students, parents, school officials and city officials celebrated the makeover for a program that started in 2021, they recognized the classroom-turned-barbershop as a place that was about more than vanity.
Thanks to the new Bolt Barbershop, smiles from preteens and young teenagers reflected in the stationary mirrors are now subdued only by the angsty pride that surfaces in middle school. And thanks to barbers and stylists lending their time, students can take as much pride in themselves as the posters on the wall tell them to invest in their school.
For the first time since the barbershop’s predecessor program started in early 2021 as the first of its kind in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, the space for buzz cuts, braids or a blurry fade is permanent.
Now it will have more frequent and regular availability, fixed stations in its corner classroom and, hopefully, a dedicated stream of support to compensate the stylists who volunteer their time.
“This is it now. This is a permanent space,” said Abbie Parker, principal of Franklin Middle School.
Soon, the concept shows promise to spread to other schools and districts across the Corridor, where teachers and students are taking note.
How it started
In a school with a policy against wearing hoods, former Franklin Middle School staffer Ben Ethier knew something was wrong when a child in school came in with their head covered.
“Kids come to school with their hood up, upset at the world,” he noticed. “Some parents were trying to cut their kids hair, but weren’t doing it the right way.”
Some days, they’d get a single day pass. Other times, conflicts would escalate too suspensions for students refusing to bring down the wall between them and teachers.
At the school with a higher population of Black students, girls with elaborate Afrocentric styles and braids that take many hours would sometimes have to attend school with unfinished hair. Developing middle schoolers, not always known for their kind and perfect consideration of others, can make learning difficult for students having a bad hair day, said the school district’s equity coach Eriece Colbert.
“For a lot of cultures, your hair defines who you are and helps navigate the world. We had to find a way to help our students stay connected and feel a part of the community,” said Colbert, who helped start the Quarterly Cuts program with Ethier in 2021. “I’d be called on in the building to help someone with their hair. It got to the point where I had a salon set up in my office to help a child navigate that situation.”
Meanwhile, Ethier was taking boys to the barbershop on his own time and his own dime. So when Colbert received a $500 grant, they invested it into bringing stylists and barbers to the school.
What it teaches them
Under the din of buzzers and relaxing music over speakers, make no mistake — the space remains a classroom in disguise where students still learn, but in different ways.
“Academics is a huge part of their daily grind. But in my role, I want kids to turn out well-rounded,” said Hannah Richmond, Franklin Middle School counselor. “The haircuts in particular are something that helps breakdown barriers in the home environment.”
Through regular surveys, Richmond knows that a sense of belonging and self-esteem are areas where Franklin students struggle the most. After Ethier left his position to take a new post at Harding Middle School, the effort to rebrand and evolve the Quarterly Cuts program into Bolt Barbershop was a priority for Franklin’s Parent Teacher Association.
With a greater sense of permanency, Franklin’s PTA hopes to secure a stream of funding that will allow them to compensate barbers and stylists, who have come as volunteers so far this semester. Many students, hesitant to receive something for nothing, bring what little they have — be it a few quarters or a $5 bill — to tip their hairdressers in appreciation.
That custom was instilled in students during the early days of Quarterly Cuts to teach them how services work, Colbert said. Often, hairdressers donate their tips to community programs.
“Everything we knew about the program was that there was truly a need,” said Christine Conover, president of Franklin Middle School PTA. “It we can eliminate whatever barriers there are to kids looking their best and feeling their best, we feel like that promotes a better learning environment overall.”
But looks aren’t everything.
Breaking down barriers
“It’s not just about the haircuts. It’s going to be about the conversations they have here,” said Tawana Grover, superintendent of the Cedar Rapids district.
In a predominantly Black school with a predominantly white staff, the intercultural barriers broken down by barbers is more than skin deep.
“It’s the connection students are able to make through our community — to see how successful professionals have walked this same avenue of life and can relate,” Richmond said. “Knowing you have more life and can desire more for yourself than the call to the streets, and watching that connection, is beautiful.”
That’s why barbers like Lewis Robinson at Wellington Barbershop are volunteering their valuable time. Robinson, whose father died when he was 11, searched most of his formative years for a role model to help him navigate life.
He started cutting his own hair and his brothers’ hair at age 12, making the rookie mistakes that come with cutting hair. With a psychology degree, he returns to the classroom to put his education to work in a different way.
"I had to figure stuff out on my own. I try to show the kids what I lacked in life,“ said Robinson. ”Once you form that connection with kids, they look up to you in a different kind of way.
By the second or third haircut, he said the boys whose hair he cuts get comfortable enough with him to look up in the mirror. Then, they bring up the problems, concerns and questions they don’t feel comfortable asking other adults about — the growing pains of puberty, growing up poor, growing up without fathers and how to talk to the opposite sex.
He gives back to reinvest in the future.
"They are the future of this community,“ he said.
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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