Girl w/Lupus passes out after school sends her out in cold

[Adminஐﻬ]

February 21, 2007

Girl w/Lupus passes out after school sends her out in cold
Her grandmother criticizes officials for allowing the 10-year-old with lupus to be punished that way.



 Kaylynn Brown has had better Valentine's Days.

The 10-year-old West Point Elementary School fourth-grader spent most of this one in the hospital after passing out at recess during punishment for not doing a social studies assignment.

Kaylynn suffers from lupus, a disease involving the body's immune system that causes inflamed tissues and can be fatal. Her grandmother and guardian, Christa McCrary, says the school system knew of Kaylynn's illness.

"They need to be taught a lesson," McCrary said Tuesday of the incident last week that she believes has aggravated her granddaughter's illness.

McCrary said she's spoken with the child's teachers and principal. No one apologized, she said, but the principal, Trena Hatcher, promised her it wouldn't happen again.


Schools Superintendent Jane Massey-Redd declined to discuss the incident other than to say, "We have investigated it."

Kaylynn said she and some 20 other students were given "the fence" during recess, meaning they had to stay by a fence while the other students played. The average temperature that day was in the 30s.

These students were being punished, she said, because they'd failed to answer some questions in their social studies textbook.

"I was confused," the girl explained. "I didn't know which questions she wanted us to answer."

She sat on the ground because "somebody said we were supposed to sit down," Kaylynn said. "I didn't want to get in trouble."

The fourth-grader said she was wearing a thick jacket but had forgotten her hat. "I sat down about a minute. It was really cold. I was shaking hard, and I had a blackout," she said.

According to National Weather Service records, the average temperature in the Richmond area Feb. 14 was 37 degrees. Winds averaged 10 mph with gusts twice that speed.

McCrary said that after her granddaughter was found unconscious, she was taken to see the school nurse, who contacted McCrary and called an ambulance.

Massey-Redd said the School Board has no policy spelling out what weather conditions, if any, should preclude taking children outdoors for recess.

"It's at the teachers' and the principals' discretion," she said. "Certainly if it's extremely cold, they don't go out." That, however, is a judgment call at the school level, the superintendent explained.

She couldn't say for certain if teachers had ever ordered children to sit on the ground in cold weather, although she said she didn't believe that had happened.

School Board Chairman Earl Wilson said Tuesday that he was unfamiliar with the incident.

Wilson said the board normally doesn't adopt policies that dictate details of a teacher's or administrator's duties.

"We like the administrators and teachers and principals to have as much discretionary freedom as possible," he said. "Everybody in the school system needs to use common sense in their judgment."

Kaylynn said Tuesday that she's been feeling pain in her feet in recent days. This, said McCrary, could be a reaction of the lupus to the exposure to cold. "They said at the hospital she had near-hypothermia," she said.

-www.LupusMCTD.com-
Bless this little girl's heart. I hope the parents see to it this doesn't happen to any other student. With or without Lupus.