Clean-Up--Isle 5

Brian has been having some behavior problems at school this past week including being on red twice (mostly for silly things) and I wanted to get to the bottom of things. I thought Eddie should go to school and have lunch with him, perhaps he needed some additional attention.


Eddie called me to confirm the time and went through the Chick-fil-a drive thru to pick up lunch. He arrived at the school a few minutes late because he had to wait in the drive thru, because they had not started serving lunch. Brian eats super early, at 10:30 so the Kindergartens can have the playground to themselves.


Eddie walked into the cafeteria to find Brian cleaning up his own vomit, and being told by the aid to go get more paper towels. He told Brian to go sit down and then proceeded to clean up for him. Then another aid told Eddie that he didn't need to clean up that "they had someone to do that." Weird...they didn't have someone before Eddie arrived. Eddie checked him out in the office, collected his belongings from his classroom and took our sick son, covered in vomit home. Then he called me.


I was beyond upset. Brian is my baby, and I was scared, hurt and mad all at the same time. I made two hysterical calls to his teacher and the principal, Ms. Carter. A few hours past and I finally received a call from the principal. We met her in her office 15 minutes later. She had investigated the situation and assured us that there is a policy in place for handling sick children, and that this happens everyday. Obviously, today policy was not followed!! I believe that Ms. Bealer the aid, who also helped in Brian's classroom, was punishing Brian for something. She had worked at the school for several years, and obviously was aware of the policy and for some reason did not follow it today.


We were assured by the principal that Brian would be in a safe and secure environment and to send him back to school. Personally, I wanted the aid out of Brian's classroom, and no longer supervising him in the cafeteria or on the playground. I did not figure that would happen, so I asked for an apology. I assured Ms. Carter that Eddie and I would be dropping by frequently.


After reflecting on this incident for a few days, I now see this as a blessing. I felt prompted to check things out at school and figure out what was going on. We were in the right place at the right time. If Eddie had not walked in when he did, we may never have gotten the truth and found out there was a potential problem at school.


**Update: Ms. Bealer has not been back to school since this incident. She has been "sick." I hope she continues to be "sick" until school is out in June.