by James A. Bacon

This story gives a whole new meaning — a literal meaning — to the phrase, “hair on fire.” According to WWBT/Gray News, a teenager at John Rolfe Middle School in Henrico County seta fellow student’s hair afire with a lighter. The boy is at VCU Medical Center suffering from second- and third-degree burns.

Here’s the TV station’s account of what happened:

His mother said she was told the school was on lockdown due to COVID-19 contact tracing, so her son’s math class was having lunch inside the classroom.

She says her son went to throw away his tray when another student approached him from behind with a lighter.

“That’s when the girl kind of flicked the lighter and lit his hair on fire,” the mother said.

The mother, who asked not to be identified, said what disturbed her most was the school’s downplaying of the incident and reluctance to press charges against the student. The principal sent the following statement to parents and students following the incident:

I’m calling to let you know about an incident that took place in your child’s science class today. A student was burned by a classmate who was playing with a lighter. The injured student was taken to the hospital and is receiving treatment. Here at school, we are reviewing the incident to ensure something like this does not happen again and taking appropriate disciplinary action as necessary. Thank you.

“You can’t just brush this under the rug and think that it’s going to just go away, it’s not,” the mother said. “My son is severely hurt. He’s suffering and it’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to him so y’all just need to be held accountable.”

The Henrico Fire Marshal’s Office did charge the teen Thursday with “unlawful wounding.”

Bacon’s bottom line:  If I were the boy’s parent, I’d be asking questions like these:

What was the offending teen doing with a fire lighter in school? Was it part of a science lab or did she bring it to school?

The principal initially described the incident as arising from the student “playing with a lighter”? Was the incident a careless accident or was it deliberate? What is the teachers’ version of the story?

What incentives might exist in Henrico County public schools to sweep incidents like these under the rug? Henrico’s disciplinary system has been modified to shut down the “school to prison pipeline.” To what extent are schools and principals rated on the the disciplinary statistics they file with the central office? To what degree, if any, are they suppressing reports of violence and declining to issue suspensions and other punishments when clearly appropriate?

There are superficial similarities here with the widely publicized case in Loudoun County, where school officials tried to suppress news that a student had raped two girls on school premises. The matter generated attention only after the father of one of the girls tried to protest at a school board meeting, was evicted for his troubles, and went viral on social media.

How many other incidents across Virginia have been downplayed? To what degree do official statistics reflect the reality of disorderly and violent behavior? Are some schools in meltdown mode?

Parents would be perfectly justified if their hair was on fire — metaphorically speaking. It will be most interesting to see how Henrico handles this incident. What kind of disciplinary action will be meted out to the offending student? If WWBT does a follow-up, I will report it.