Brickbat: How Blue Can You Make Me?

"The Little Mermaid"

To play an eel in a school production of The Little Mermaid, Olivia Shaffer, 12, asked her mother if she could dye her hair blue. Her mom checked the Orange County, Florida, school system handbook, found nothing against it and helped her dye her hair. But when Shaffer went to school, her principal told her she had to change back to her natural color or she'd be suspended. School officials say that though the district has no rules about student hair color, each school can design its own rules and the school Shaffer attends bans distracting hair colors.