DeKALB – The DeKalb School District 428 is looking into a Facebook post by a parent claiming her child was injured during a Brooks Elementary School sledding outing Tuesday and no one called to tell her.
Monica Jefferson posted four pictures on Facebook on Wednesday evening showing her daughter with bloody wounds on her forehead, her right cheek and below her nose, along with a message saying she had to find out from someone who doesn’t work for the school district.
“But I get a call from a outsider about what happened to my baby’s face,” the post reads. “The school didn’t call me or the principal didn’t call.”
Her Facebook post has been shared about 18,000 times.
The sledding field trip for kindergartners through second-graders was Tuesday morning at Russell Woods in Genoa. Jefferson wrote in her post that staff members and students were back in time for lunch, and when she arrived at the school to check on her daughter, Principal Brooke Condon was in a meeting and unavailable.
Superintendent Jamie Craven said the district is speaking with all parties involved to find out the timeline of what happened and respond accordingly, but that he can’t comment on details because of student and staff confidentiality laws.
“The health and well-being and safety of our kids is definitely a priority for the district,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate we had a student injured, and we feel bad about it.”
Jenn Soss, another parent whose child was on the sledding trip said her daughter, a second-grader, also was hurt on the trip, and that she got a voicemail at 11:49 a.m. She said when she called back expecting to speak to the nurse, she instead spoke with Condon, and that her child’s teacher checked in with her later that afternoon and the next day.
“Brooks Elementary handled her injury amazingly well, and we sincerely appreciate all that they did,” Soss said. “… We were contacted by the school nurse, Principal Condon herself, and my child’s teacher contacted me and followed up and checked in on my daughter even yesterday when she took one day off school.”
Soss also said parents were given an option on the permission slip to keep their children off of the trip.
Messages sent to Jefferson have not yet been returned.