Wake County Schools

Pandemic was hairier experience for Cary teacher than for most

Most teachers would do just about anything for their students. For one teacher in Cary, it was a 'do to help his class get through the pandemic.

Posted Updated

By
Bryan Mims
, WRAL reporter
CARY, N.C. — Most teachers would do just about anything for their students. For one teacher in Cary, it was a 'do to help his class get through the pandemic.

"The last time i got my haircut was February 2020," said Chris Curley, a fifth-grade teacher at Weatherstone Elementary School.

That was shortly before the pandemic forced barbershops and salons to close for months.

Curley said he decided to let his hair grow "as a kind of pandemic thing."

"But then the pandemic turned into months," he added.

Earlier this school year, he said, he told his class he was ready to cut his hair, but they didn't like that idea at all.

"There's like 42 letters the kids wrote me explaining why I shouldn't cut it, but if I was going to, why they should be the ones who should do it," he said.

Many of the letters bore the hashtag #NoCut.

"One of my girls was joking around, saying, if I cut my hair, they'd want to go back to Virtual Academy because it would be too devastating to see my hair not where it was," Curley said.

So, he let it grow.

"It got to a point in the last three months where it was just annoying," he said.

On the last day of school this week, Curley found the relief he had been waiting for for 16 long months. Outside the school, with his teaching partner, Kristen Montjoy, supervising, his students started cutting.

"To see their faces and how happy they were, it was worth waiting this long to get it cut for them," he said.

"For whatever reason, they decided to keep some of it for themselves," he added. "I don't know what they're going to do with it, but it's all part of the fun."

Curley went to a professional stylist Friday to clean up the cut his students gave him, but he said he hopes his hair is happily rooted in their memories for life.

"My big takeaway, I hope, is that they had a fifth-grade teacher who cared about them more than they probably ever know and would literally do anything to see them happy because, I mean, let's be honest, this has been a tough year for everyone."

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