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Reporting school injury

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zero18

Member
What is the name of your state? Florida
Does a school (grade 2) have a legal obligation to notify a parent if there child is injured at school?
 


stealth2

Under the Radar Member
zero18 said:
It was a puncture wound
That could be a pinprick or it could be a serious wound. It would really help if you just laid out the situation instead of making us guess or drag it out of you one sentence at a time.
 

zero18

Member
ok here it is...
The teacher was cleaning up the tables in the classroom. she instructed the class captains to put the baskets of crayons and pencils on the floor. my son got up and tripped over a basket and landed on a pencil. The pencil punctured his skin and was stuck in his leg. the pencil was removed and the teacher sent him to the nurse. The nurse (a subtitute) stuck a band aid on it and told him to hurry back to class because school was letting out. (my opinion.. she wanted to go home) I did not notice the band aid that night. the next night he was complaining about pain in his leg. There was ooze comming out from under the band aid. When I removed, the wound was very swollen, had a dark circle around it amd was hot to the touch. I called the doctors office and they instructed us to take him to the ER right away. The doctor was worried the infection would sped to the blood stream before the morning when they opened. The hospital removed the point from the pencil and treated the wound. They gave him Antibiotics to treat the infection. To make things worse there trying to cover up the entire incident since I asked for the hospital bill to be paid.
 

DEeyore

Junior Member
I'm not sure if the laws differ by state or the grade level your son is attending, but in the 13 years that I spent working in Early Childhood Education in Pennsylvania, every injury, no matter how minor it was, had to be documented according to State mandates.

We had what was called an "Incident Report" form, and it was filled out in triplicate. We used carbon forms, and they needed to be filled out with a detailed report of how the injury occurred (i.e. James fell off the swing in the playground, scraping his right knee), the time and location of the injury (i.e. playground at 10:15 AM), the nature of treatment given (i.e. washed with soap & water, band-aid applied, TLC, etc.) and had to be signed and dated by both the staff members on duty when the incident occurred and the director of the center.

For any injuries to the head or face, the parent was called immediately and informed so that they didn't walk in at the end of the day and see their child with a large goose-egg or cut on their head or face. Obviously, this also applied to more serious injuries as well, and I would definitely consider a puncture wound a serious injury. You should demand that your child's school provide you with an incident report immediately. If they don't have them on record, (I can't imagine any school not having them) at the very least, you should have your son's teacher write up an incident report on plain paper with all of the details that I mentioned above. It should read something like this:

Injury/Accident Report

Child's Name: ________________________ Age: _____ D.O.B: ___________

Date: _____________ Location: __________________________

Teacher(s): ______________________ Time of Accident: _____________

List Adults Present: _________________________________

_________________________________


Description of Accident:__________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

First Aid Given:_________________________________________________

Administered by:________________________________________________

Follow-up Treatment (If Any):_____________________________________

(Fill in all that apply)

Nature of Injury:________________________________________________

Abrasion, Bump, Red Mark, Sprain (suspected), Bite Mark, Rug Burn, Bruise, Fracture, Puncture wound, Scratch, Nosebleed

Location of Injury:_______________________________________________

Appendage, Buttock, Eye, Heel, Neck, Teeth, Cheek, Finger, Hip, Nose, Chin, Forehead, Tongue, Toe, Ankle, Arm, Hand, Ear, Leg, Shoulder, Vagina, Back, Elbow, Head, Lips, Stomach, Wrist

Notification

Time Parent Notified:______
Notified By Whom:______________________________
911 Called Time:______

Transportation Used Type:________________________

Ambulance, School Vehicle


Message Left Hospital/Clinic ____________
Physician Called Time: _______

If serious injury/death, notify the Licensor.

Teacher's Signature: ___________________________________
Date: __________________

Director's Signature: __________________________________
Date: __________________

Parent's Signature: ____________________________________
Date: __________________

White - Daycare Copy Yellow - Parent Copy Pink - Child's File Copy


This report isn't as detailed as the ones that we had to fill out, but it generally gives you an idea of what sort of paperwork should be filed when an incident happens at school. The school that I worked for made us document EVERYTHING, we even had separate forms for children who came into school with injuries from home so that we would have documentation on file in case mom forgot to tell dad (or vice versa) that something had happened at home before school.

I don't blame you one bit for being upset with your son's school for not notifying you of his injury. Even if the child is not a complainer, that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't anything seriously wrong with him/her.

~ Dee ~
 

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