6-Year-Old Allergic to Dairy Was Reportedly Forced To Clean Her Own Feces After School Fed Her Milk

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There’s no question that schools should take children’s allergies seriously. Their immune systems are often not as strong as those of adults and their reactions to foods we consume every day can be more drastic and severe. In the worst instances, allergic reactions can be fatal. Yet one school in Louisiana, did not give a 6-year-old’s milk allergy the attention that it deserved. Sadly, when her body reacted, her teachers punished her instead of meeting her with compassion.

Jamisha Augustine told WAFB that her daughter has a dairy allergy. Augustine filled out forms and sent doctor’s notes with her daughter’s enrollment paperwork denoting this fact. Still, for breakfast she was served milk at Rollins Elementary School.

She got sick almost immediately. She used the restroom several times. Eventually, her teacher stopped allowing her to go. “She asked her teacher to go to the restroom, but she said no because she went too many times,” Augustine said.

After she was denied the restroom, the child, who remains anonymous, defecated on herself. Instead of her teacher calling the janitor to clean up the mess, she made the child remove her own feces, without gloves. To add insult to injury, after the girl cleaned up her mess, the teacher sent her to the principal’s office.

“So, upon her going to the office after having an accident, the principal told her she was too big to be having accidents on herself,” Augustine said. Later, the principal told Augustine that the child needed a form of discipline for the accident. “I said, what was the point of making her clean that up? Do y’all have janitors? She said they do have janitors, but she needed a form of discipline,” Augustine said. “I’m saying, how can you punish her for having an accident?”

Augustine called the whole situation, “irresponsible, hazardous, disgraceful, and really pathetic.” Superintendent of Zachary Community School District Ben Necaise agrees the school mishandled the situation. “You learn from mistakes,” Necaise said. “You take ownership, accept them, and try to do what’s right by the child and parent. In hindsight, they realized that was not an appropriate step. We do have safety precautions that we have to abide by, and again, a child should never be put in that situation to have to deal with that.” Necaise said the staff has received training. 

Necaise says the school has several students with allergies and dietary restrictions and the cafeteria staff make sure to adhere to them. Since the incident, the school system called Augustine to offer a formal apology.

Augustine would like to see some action behind the words. She wants to ensure that the school handles similar situations differently in the future. “You [should] send a janitor in with the proper equipment,” Augustine said. “But a 6-year-old kid, you are going to make them clean up poop without gloves. It’s disgraceful and should not have gone on in our school. It should not have happened.”