Among Friends : 11-Year-Old Shares a Secret With Her Remarkable School

Jennifer Ferrell felt she could trust her teachers and fellow students at Bay Park Elementary School and reveal her long-kept secret.

So she went to school last month for the first time without her wig, and led the student body in its daily aerobics exercise, revealing a head as smooth as the skin of a newborn baby.

Her trust was well-founded: Not a single one of Bay Park’s 476 students made fun of her baldness. Instead, the students listened intently as she went from class to class explaining her special condition.

And, when teachers at the Clairemont-area school decided last week to award Jennifer an outstanding-citizenship certificate for her courage, they realized that the rest of the students deserved a collective salutation for their actions as well.

In an emotion-laden thank-you, teacher Sharon Frieden-Howe and Principal Barbara Coates told students that their conduct exemplified the values that the staff works so hard to instill in them. Afterward, there wasn’t a dry eye left among the students or the invited parents.

“I can’t believe you made us cry!” one fourth-grade boy gently scolded Frieden-Howe after the honors assembly.

Some recognition for Jennifer’s decision goes to Bay Park teachers. They are well-known among area educators for the nurturing atmosphere they create for students, especially for the more than 60 Laotian boys and girls whose parents voluntarily bus them to the school from Southeast San Diego year after year because of its friendly environment.

“I just can’t say enough about the school and especially Jennifer’s teacher, Sharon,” said Sandra Ferrell, Jennifer’s mother. “They’ve been wonderful with her self-esteem.” Schools Supt. Tom Payzant said he is familiar with Bay Park’s “climate of openness,” adding that “kids are savvy--they see the distinction between what we say and what we do, and when they see adults treating each other with respect, they quickly emulate.”

Jennifer herself gives some credit to pop singer Sinead O’Connor, whose decision to shave her head provided Jennifer with a role model to choose as a hero for study during the school’s “quest and heroism” social studies unit in February.

“She is a really neat person,” Jennifer wrote in her “My Hero Is . . . “ essay. “I like all of her songs. Other than that, we both have something in common. We are both bald. Oh, and I like to sing, too.”

The always-smiling 11-year-old concedes that she was a bit nervous at first about removing her wig, which she has worn for five years, ever since she lost her hair to a medical condition known as alopecia.

(Alopecia is a general condition describing hair loss as a result of a poorly understood disorder involving hair follicles, according to a dermatology text by Professor Morris Leider of New York University. Although many people may have small areas of alopecia-caused hair loss, Jennifer has a rarer, more complete condition known as alopecia totalis. She has little hope of regaining her hair, her family says, but may one day recover her eyelashes and eyebrows.)

Jennifer’s apprehension was due in part to her experience at two other San Diego city schools she had attended, Alcott and Spreckels, where she was harassed the few times her wig accidentally fell off during recess, she explained.

“Kids there gave me a really hard time,” she said. “At Alcott, I was tackled once and my hair fell off, and other kids kicked sand on it and laughed. And my best friend said, ‘Oh, Lord!’ because she had never seen me bald, although I had told her.”

Some of the children at Spreckels also knew and would say things to Jennifer, even though she and her parents officially told only the nurse and her main teacher at each school in case of an emergency.

“But it’s hard to keep a secret,” Jennifer said.

Her confidence in shedding the hairpiece--and getting to hang upside-down on the monkey bars--developed initially at Bay Park with the help of teacher Frieden-Howe.

“I like her, she laughs a lot like my mother,” Jennifer said. “And she has us learn about neat people, like Amelia Earhart,” the aviation pioneer.

Just as important, Frieden-Howe talked with Jennifer about gradually sharing her condition with classmates in her own room, which she did successfully, with her father along for support.

“I could tell she was making progress toward not wearing her hair at all, because, in her storybook diorama a couple of months ago, she made her princess bald,” Frieden-Howe said.

Then Jennifer researched her paper on Sinead O’Connor and also talked with school nurse Sandra Wright, who told her about a close friend who went around bald without any concern.

“So all of that made me feel real good, and also at this school teachers help kids learn and care, and the principal really has the kids like and respect each other,” Jennifer said.

The first day she came to school without the wig, she did expect “at least a little teasing,” she said.

“But no one said anything. A few stared because they couldn’t believe it was me, and a few said, ‘Hi.’ ”

Some of her friends now say she “looks really cute” without her wig, while others talk about her being able to wear any type of hair she wants, “like spiked or colored hair.”

Students Adam Jones and Jeff Albritton interviewed Jennifer for the monthly newsletter “Room One Roundup” in the fifth-grade class of teacher Robert Ryan.

Adam admitted to being a bit nervous himself in interviewing Jennifer, but said that “she soon talked like she had been my best friend for 20 years. . . . She’s a really neat kid.”

“Everyone looked at her once,” Jeff said, “but while it would be easy to tease someone, no one did. . . . The principal really makes our school spirit and environment neat.”

All this comes as no surprise to school district counselor Rebecca Speer or speech therapist Carol Robbins, both of whom work not only at Bay Park but at several other schools each week.

“Of all the schools I go to, this one always changes my attitude,” Robbins said. “People treat kids so well at this school that I don’t really feel like I’m working when I’m here.”

“There’s a lot of love at Bay Park,” said Speer. “What you see that happened with Jennifer has happened with other kids as well. This is the school that brings me the most joy because I see children’s emotional welfare being met.”