Deepa Bharath “Not the eyebrows, guys, please!”...
Deepa Bharath
“Not the eyebrows, guys, please!”
The plea for mercy came from Oscar Santoyo, director of Save Our
Youth, as he sat on a chair Friday evening surrounded by a bunch of
students armed with hair clippers and hair dye.
Santoyo had promised his students in Save Our Youth’s academic
program that if they each earned a grade point average of 2.8, they
could do whatever they liked to his hair and he would keep the
“style” for a week, however humiliating.
Well, to put it mildly, Santoyo’s poor hair didn’t stand a chance.
The students’ cumulative GPA was 3.1.
Santoyo was not the only one who made a deal. Two of the
coordinators promised the kids that they could pelt them with pies if
they got good grades. So Academic Coordinator Navie Hurtado and Boys
Coordinator Jose Zapien ate quite a bit of whipped cream as students
hurled pie after pie.
“I hate whipped cream!” Hurtado yelled, spitting out the white
mess.
Zapien was the masochist. He sat unruffled as the plastic plates
filled with cream slammed against his face. Some flying cream saucers
landed on his head.
After all, Zapien had done it himself. It turns out pie-throwing
and haircutting is not new at Save Our Youth.
“I’ve been coming to the SOY center since it first opened way back
when,” he said. “I loved doing this when I was their age. Now it’s
their turn.”
Santoyo has shaved his head several times in the past. He had not
done it for the last two years because he didn’t want to “scare my
son,” who is now 2 years old.
“But this year, I wanted to do it,” Santoyo said. “Hopefully, my
son won’t freak out too much.”
Save Our Youth’s academic program started several years ago,
aiming to keep kids in high school. Today, it’s gone one step
further.
“Our goal now is to see them continue and go to college,” Santoyo
said.
And it seems to be happening. Last year, out of 13 seniors, nine got into universities, he said.
“If we can achieve that, if we can motivate them to learn; this is
totally worth it,” Santoyo said.
Santoyo, of course, regretted those words the second he sat on
“the chair.” Giggling boys and girls used clippers to shave his hair
from the middle of his head and then proceeded to take some off the
sides. Then, they painted what was left on his head with bright pink
and purple dye that probably won’t wash off for at least a week.
Then, there were the hecklers.
“Bad hair day, Oscar?”
“You look sexy, Oscar!”
Santoyo responded with a sarcastic nod, his eyes half closed,
cocking his eyebrows -- which were spared.
Juan Flores, an eighth-grader at TeWinkle Middle School, said he’s
gotten a 4.0 GPA for the last two years.
“This did motivate me in a way,” he said. “I couldn’t wait. I
wanted to mess up his hair.”
Perla Zaragoza, a freshman at Estancia High, said Santoyo and the
coordinators were being “good sports.”
“But they deserve it,” she said with mock meanness. “They’re
always asking me to do my homework. And Oscar made me do sit-ups this
one time I said a bad word. It’s payback time.”
As for Santoyo, he has no regrets.
“It’s just hair,” he said. “It’ll grow back.”
* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be
reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.
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