My daughter is a freshman in high school, just over a month ago she went to her PE cla*s wearing converse sneakers. Her PE teacher said that the shoes were unacceptable and that she'd need to find or borrow a pair of 'PE shoes' to wear. Ultimately my daughter borrowed a friend's shoes that were 2-3 sizes too small. As she ran 12 laps, the equivalent to 3 miles her toes began to bleed from the toenail beds. She was in tears and told the teacher, who told her to keep running.
By the end of the day my daughter's feet were bloody and her toenails had turned black. I took her to her physician who gave her a medical note to not participate in PE. She was given 'incomplete' grades for each day she was excused.
I called the school to talk with the prinicipal about the situation. I was told, "As prinicpal it is not my responsibility to speak with the teacher. I do not want to be in between a 'he said, she said' battle. You'll need to speak with the teacher about the matter."
I've left messages, but so far have not received any calls back from the PE teacher.
My daughter has since been forced to run laps again (as her doctors note expired) and consequently her toe has developed an infection. She's been seen by her doctor again, who put her on antibiotics. Her doctor wrote a note to the school explaining that she is not to participate in any strenuous running activity for the remainder of the school year.
My question is, what can I do about this legally? And where do I start? I feel strongly that the PE teacher was negligent and endangered my daughter's safety and well-being. Additionally, the pricinipal failed to carry out her duties to protect my daughter.
My daughter explained to me that because of her injury and 'incomplete timed runs' she will ultimately fail the cla*s, which will have an effect on her GPA. My daughter is very athletic and is now missing out on activities she loves because of the actions of the teacher. Any advice would be appreciated.
**I suppose I did not clarify enough in the initial posting, but the shoes my daughter was wearing were converse sneaker, not the cheap converse, but actual padded, laced sneakers. They are proper PE shoes according to most standards. Additionally, I made a photo document of the shoes, the blood, the effect of on her feet/toes and the progression of the injury.
Unfortunately, there is only one girls' PE teacher and my daughter will have to have her again next year. We have a very small school of less than 500 students. My daughter is very athletic and I also ensure that she has the proper clothing and shoes. The shoes she wore were the same ones she wore every day prior to the date of the injury. If she receives a failing grade for her PE cla*s, not only will she be required to retake the cla*s, but she will be ineligible for sports.
Dr.Wigglefarmer
To me it looks like you were negligent in not providing your child with the necessary shoes for P.E.When you found out what caused the problem why didn't you go to Wal Mart and buy some cheap running shoes?
EDIT: Converse are in no why good P.E.shoes, they have absolutely no in sloe or back support.I have the same shoes and when I was in high school I wore them the first day of P.E.and they made my feet bleed, that's not the teachers fault.The next day my dad took me to get new shoes and we never had a problem.
And if you daughter was bleeding why didn't she go to the nurse?They most likely would have sent her home
sweet.caroline
You should go to the superintendent and talk to him/her about this. The principal is wrong. yes, you should go to the teacher but if it is not resolved, which it appears it is not, then the principal should look at this and investigate. The teacher and the school do have a responsibility to your child not to force her into a situation that would injure her. for the teacher to give her a bad grade for incomplete runs when she was on medical release does not seem appropriate and there should have been something else she could have been a*signed. You may be able to get this entire cla*s dropped from her record. Is there another PE teacher for the cla*s? Find out why the Converse shoes (which are a gym shoe, though usually basketball) was not acceptable for the cla*s.Then it is your duty as a parent to get shoes where she will nto be injured. A simple fairly inexpensive shoe might be fine. Find out if it can be a tennis shoe or if it has to be a running shoe. Once there was injury and bleeding, she should ahve been abel to tell teacher and he should have sent her to the office to the nurse or at the least, tried to cleanse the toes and bandage them. Definitely should not have had her continue to run. You should now go to superintendent (so long as you did talk to teacher) and if that is not satisfactory, go to the school board, which consists of community people or parents. If that does not resolve this, then go to an attorney and do it all within a short period of time (like a year). I think the teacher has some duty to her. As to whether or not it is negligence, I am not sure.He didn't force her to wear shoes too small for her. She could have sat out of the cla*s if she couldn't run in the shoes she had and you could have gone to the school the next day.So there are duties you have as a parent as well.Yet this seems unreasonable to me. I can't see why Converse shoes would not be acceptable.
Good luck to your daughter. See about some other t ype of PE. Maybe dance cla*s or volleyball or something.
ch
I had a similar experience with my daughter's elementary school a few years ago.My daughter told me one of the boys on the playground was bullying and hara*sing her.She said she told her teacher about it, but the teacher did not do anything about it.I called the principal, and she said since the teacher did not report it to her, she could not do anything.The very next day my daughter came home crying, and told me the same boy had pushed her down again.Since the pain would not go away I took her to the doctor, who x-rayed her and found she had a hairline crack in her wrist and put a splint on it.The next day the principal called me and asked why she was wearing a splint.I told her what happened, and I told her if she did not do anything about this I would arrange for the police department to give a briefing to her employees about child abuse and hara*sment.After this there was more supervision out on the playground and the principal had a meeting the boy's parents.I guess she did not want be seen that she could not lead her employees responsibly.I did not have anymore problems this school anymore.
Orignal From: Negligence in school?
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