By David Wallace
C & G Staff Writer

FARMINGTON HILLS — A Power Middle School assistant principal’s face didn’t always look happy as students took turns gliding an electric razor across his scalp June 16, but he happily traded his locks for students’ good grades.

James Anderson made a deal with the 668 students at Power. He wanted them to demonstrate good behavior and stamp out failing grades during the school year’s last trimester. If they did that amidst changes in the school district — Power will become an upper elementary school in the fall, with seventh- and eighth-graders moving to East Middle School — and carried the success through the trimester, Anderson would shave his head.

The program to make it happen took the name “Achieve.” During the June 16 assembly, Anderson looked at a sea of blue “Achieve” T-shirts.

“This blows my mind. This is way beyond what I envisioned. This is exactly what I wanted to see and more,” said Anderson.

“Everybody in here achieved. And we aren’t done. We still have a day and half after this, and we’re going to keep working to the very end, right?” Anderson asked, and received copious cheers.

Anderson used behavior referral forms to measure student behavior.

“I printed off pink sheets that represented one per person for the entire third trimester, for the entire last 13 weeks of school, which is sometimes a hard time for middle schoolers to hold things together. How did we do? We started with 668 sheets. There’s … 400 still left in the box,” said Anderson.

On the academic side, Anderson projected on the gymnasium wall data from the district’s middle schools from the last trimester last year. The data showed that of the grades earned a year ago, 92.4 percent were passing.

“The sad thing, though, is that means that 7.6 (percent) of those were not. That is not representative of Power or what we set out to do,” said Anderson.

The kids’ cheering drowned him out when the next slide projected the figure of 99.1 percent on the gym wall. Of all grades earned these past 13 weeks, almost all of them were passing grades.

“We’re going to work until 10:40 on Friday,” said Anderson, pledging to improve those last tenths.

“(It was) probably the hardest we’ve ever had to work,” said seventh-grader Alanna Perlstein. “I’m surprised we made it to getting no F’s.”

With a chair, razor and professional hairdresser looming behind him, Anderson calculated that he was in for the equivalent of a million-dollar haircut because 668 students worked six hours per day for 60 days to earn the assembly. Anderson figured $7 an hour represented a teen’s average wage to estimate the value.

Counting down to the haircut, the school projected images of famous bald men on the gym wall, which drew progressively louder cheers and screams as the pictures shuffled through icons including Michael Jordan, Gandhi, Mr. Clean, Homer Simpson, and finally, Power Middle School principal Bob Kovar.

“I’m kind of ready, but I’m a little scared, too, because I don’t know what it’s going to look like,” said Anderson.

Kovar drew names from a shoebox, and a dozen or so students assisted hairdresser and Power alumna Holly Reuter in shaving Anderson’s hair. After the students cropped Anderson’s hair, Reuter took over to give Anderson his Marine Corps recruit look.

“He gave us a promise and kept the promise and didn’t break it,” said sixth-grader Karson Gregory.

The haircut seemed to increase students’ esteem for Anderson.

“I think he’s a bit better now,” said Michael Pimlott, a sixth-grader. “He’d shave his hair just for us.”

Anderson usually wears his hair short — he grew it out for the last trimester — but he didn’t immediately know if the shaved look would  last.

“I’m going to have to take a good look in the mirror and consult with my wife and my children — see what they say,” said Anderson.

You can reach Staff Writer David Wallace at dwallace@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1053.