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Privacy And Your Feelings About It?

seezee

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jerseyangel Proficient
jerseyangel
Posted

Still fighting the school. The social worker who is a celiac specialist at the hospital is assisting. The medical team is very concerned. I can see now why there are federal laws about this. The school's approach seems to be to try to ignore it. SW says this is a common technique given that many parents give up. The problem is she says the emotional and physical damage is cumulative so I can't.

Thanks for the update, and like TH said--hang in there :)

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seezee Explorer
seezee
Posted
  • Author

Met with the head of school and it was awful. I brought the class room parent. He pretty much said that even though it says in their handbook in about a dozen places that there is no food sharing at the school that in actual practice food sharing occurs in classroooms regularly and he felt the staff would need additional training to understand the rule. He also said that the school was actually a 'baking' school. He also said this was the first student with celiac which was also a lie since I spoke to the mother of an eighth grader last year who had two sons go through the school. He did agree to clean the desks in the classroom for the last 12 days of school and that it was acceptable that the teacher not offer my child food for the rest of the year. He had no answers as to why it has taken this many tries to get this done. He pretty much said that the teasing and other things were well-intentioned and that she was too sensitive and they weren't directed toward her.

This is their written policy

To protect children with food allergies and special dietary needs, food sharing is not permitted.

I wouldn't think that this as written is of such complexity that it requires special training to implement in the classroom. Poor room parent was stunned.

We are done with the school, but I will let people know. Any ideas?

TrillumHunter Enthusiast
TrillumHunter
Posted

Wow.

Like I said before, I'm not a litigious person by nature, BUT I would get lawyered up and have ANOTHER meeting with the school.

They have a written policy in place which led you to believe your daughter would be safe. They KNOWINGLY broke this policy and put your child at risk. And it wasn't the action of one teacher, but an accepted practice approved by the head of the school.

You would win.

Baking school--my a@@! :angry:

jerseyangel Proficient
jerseyangel
Posted

Met with the head of school and it was awful....He pretty much said that even though it says in their handbook in about a dozen places that there is no food sharing at the school that in actual practice food sharing occurs in classroooms regularly

This is their written policy

To protect children with food allergies and special dietary needs, food sharing is not permitted.

This guy is talking out of both sides of his mouth and is asking for a lawsuit, if you ask me. His turning a blind eye to the rules and the emotionally abusive behavior of the teacher is dangerous for the children at that school.

  • 2 weeks later...
misslexi Apprentice
misslexi
Posted

I just came across this, and I know its been a while since anyone posted but I have to chime in.

I am nearly in tears with sympathy for your daughter. When I was in grade 9 or 10 my councellor broke a ridiculous number of privacy laws on more than one occasion and it has been quite damaging to me several years later.

I couldn't do anything about it as a child, the councellor involved my parents without my permission, and teachers, and so on. Including the VP who did an equal amount of damage when I did finally try and fight to remove myself from the situation.

You need to fight this. Lawsuits, getting that 'teacher' fired. Whatever it takes to get the point across that it is not ok to break laws about privacy and medical information. People do not understand how damaging it is. I can't even form words for what I want to say. But one thing is for sure, if that happened to me now, or to my child when I have one...I would be out for blood.

My heart goes out to your little girl. Control is so important to mentally dealing with Celiac...and to have that ripped away from her is unacceptable.

conniebky Collaborator
conniebky
Posted

This is a HIPPA violation. Don't teachers have to abide by that? I mean, seriously, I know health care workers do, but do teachers?

She shouldn't have said that. period.

seezee Explorer
seezee
Posted
  • Author

I checked with an attorney and the hospital social worker and I think it is not HIPPA but FERPA applies to schools. (Open Original Shared Link) However, private schools aren't exactly required to follow this rule necessarily or accommodate a disability since they don't get federal funding.

I had also requested that they had a plan to clean the desks before and after serving food and this didn't happen either even though everyone at the school told me of course they would do that. They don't have a cafeteria, so you can imagine with no regular cleanup it gets yucky.

Anyways, we decided not to return to the school next year, because I don't feel like I want my child in a place where they don't protect her physical and emotional safety. There are three others from her class leaving as well (out of 11), so I am not the only one who was pretty unhappy.

I learned a lot about advocating though.

I feel sad because she really liked the other kids there a lot and most of the other teachers were really good.

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