In the realm of utterly stupid bigotry this one is up there. Asking a child for a note from his Rabbi to cover his head at school was not an especially bright thing to do. If the kid wanted to cover his head in a giant foam cowboy hat it would still be covered. There is not specific form the covering might take. If one lacks a Kippah one could use a handkerchief or other object to symbolize covering ones head.
A Northwood High School junior and his father are seeking an apology from the teenager’s principal for being required to produce a letter from their rabbi for permission to wear a yarmulke to school.
A yarmulke, or kippah, is a kind of Jewish head covering typically worn by men when they pray. Some Jewish men wear them all day. Many kippahs are small, but the one that Caleb Tanenbaum wore to school last week was a large, black hat that had been knitted by his mother and which covered his dreadlocks.
An administrator in the cafeteria asked Caleb to remove the hat, the student recalled, but he declined, saying it was for religious purposes.
Principal Henry Johnson Jr. also challenged his hat. “This wasn’t what we traditionally see as a yarmulke or a kippah. ... It looked like the head covering we see some Rastafarians wear,” he said Friday in an interview. He also had not noticed Caleb wearing any kind of religious head covering before, he said.
“We usually don’t question any student’s religion or their head coverings,” Johnson said. “But when you have all these different kids, and all these different religions and cultures, we have to validate sometimes — is this religious or is it just something you are trying to wear because it’s a fad.”
So a gift from the child's mother was being used by this child at school and the principal not only took exception to it but tried to get him to get permission from a Rabbi?
I'm sure plenty of Rabbis will now set him straight