Friday, June 22, 2012

When Washington State Law gets stupid: Washington Students Severely Burnt on Field Day After State Law Prohibits Liberal Use of Sunscreen

Yeah, well, sometimes, Sir, the law is an ass.
Washington Students Severely Burnt on Field Day After State Law Prohibits Liberal Use of Sunscreen
 
 
Parents of Point Defiance Elementary School children were horrified after their kids were severely burnt on field day. State law prohibits use of sunscreen at the school unless the students have a doctor’s note.
The kids were so burnt they required medical attention.
KATU reported, via Orbusmax:
Jesse Michener was horrified Tuesday evening when she returned home from work to find two of her three daughters severely sunburned after field day at Point Defiance Elementary School.
It was raining when the girls left for school Tuesday morning, but the sun came out midday and ended up burning Violet and Zoe so severely that their mother took them to Tacoma General Hospital that evening.
Tacoma Public Schools policy prohibits teachers from putting sunscreen on students.
Students can apply their own, but are required to have a doctor’s note authorizing them to use it.
District spokesman Dan Voelpel says the doctor’s note policy is actually based on a statewide law, and is aimed at preventing kids from sharing sunscreen with someone who might have an allergy. He says there are many students in the district with allergies to common additives in sunscreens and lotions.
Parents are encouraged to apply sunscreen before sending their children to school, or dress them appropriately for sunny weather.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:20 PM

    There is no state law prohibiting the teachers from letting kids go inside. There is no state law forcing the school to keep kids outside in the sun for five hours. If the school would have used an ounce of common sense this all would have been prevented. The child with the severe burns had a 504 plan that allowed for her sensitivity to the sun, but it was ignored. The mom has some culpability in this, since she did not apply any sunscreen to her kids before school or give them any to take with them. But if the administrators had the sense God gave them, any burns to any children would have been minimal.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:02 PM

    There's a reason for the law. It's just a shame crappy Huffington Post didn't include the ENTIRE story in their "story". Here's what other news sites also posted that Huff Po left out:

    "District spokesman Dan Voelpel says the doctor’s note policy is actually based on a statewide law, and is aimed at preventing kids from sharing sunscreen with someone who might have an allergy. He says there are many students in the district with allergies to common additives in sunscreens and lotions."

    The law is there for a good reason.

    The mother should have applied sunscreen to her kids before sending them out in freaking June. And the excuse of "it was raining" is crap. It's Washington. It always rains there. Like ALWAYS. And they still know to use sunscreen anyways.

    The mother screw up and is trying to blame other people. The REALITY is if she REALLY cared she would have gotten on the internet, like a sensible parent, took five minutes of of her day to do some googling, and found already that a little mayonnaise can completely take the pain out of a sunburn (the vinegar in the mayo is what actually does it) rather than let her kids suffer for days on end.

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080511132950AAahudF

    ReplyDelete

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