4 Things To Do When Your Kid Is Injured At School

Sending your kids to school is a big decision for parents to make. Not only are you entrusting the school with your child’s learning and academics, but you’re also placing in their hands your child’s safety. But whether intentional or not, accidents can happen.

Administrators have the responsibility of ensuring the school is safe for children, but untoward incidents can happen, especially for younger children who love to run around. 

As parents, here are four things you have to do when your child is injured at school:

1. Consider Calling Your Lawyer

When your kid is injured at school, you may want to get hold of your family lawyer or personal injury lawyer. This isn’t to say that you’re putting the blame on the school right away, but you need help to investigate legally whether the school was at fault.

Remember that in law, there’s a doctrine known as ‘in loco parentis,’ which means during school hours, the teachers stand as parents over the students. Should anything happen to them under the teacher’s hours, the school may have liability. Therefore, it’s important for school administrators to exercise a high standard of care to prevent harm.

If you don’t have a lawyer yet, consider Alvine Weidenaar practice areas and see if the firm can help you navigate the situation.

2. Take Note Of Everything That Happened

If your child is old enough to remember everything that happened, talk to them privately without the pressure of the school or other classmates. Take note of your child’s account of the accident. Also, don’t be swayed by an uncooperative school administrator or professor, if that’s what you’re facing. If there are surveillance cameras around, ask if you can see those to find any possible record of what happened.

3. Seek Medical Attention

Schools are also legally obliged to have a clinic, but these don’t have all the equipment to cater to more serious injuries.

If the happening was serious, most likely, the school will have already called an ambulance and have your child sent off to the hospital. But if it’s only minor, then first aid is would be given at the school clinic.

Some of the common injuries which could happen at schools include:

• Food poisoning, if proper handling of meals isn’t practiced in the canteens;
• Slips, trips, and falls, which usually happen in playgrounds or when kids are running around during the break;
• Defective equipment, especially if the kids were using certain materials for chemistry, physics, arts, and physical education classes;
• Sports injuries, which can occur to those kids who are involved in sports clubs or have been injured during physical education classes.

For serious injuries, make it a point to follow suit with the emergency services of the hospital and be diligent about the doctor’s instructions for the child’s healing. For minor injuries, if you aren’t satisfied with the first aid given at the school, it’s still worth going to the doctor. They could prescribe a camboot and similar treatments to help your child recover after the accident.

Remember that in case of bumps and falls, particularly those affecting the head, injuries aren’t always physical. It’s only through a series of diagnostic and imaging tests that an overall check can be done to ensure your child doesn’t have any serious internal injuries.

4. Transfer Your Child To Another School

Transferring your child to another school may seem like an extreme measure, but parents will do anything in their power to protect their kids. If you aren’t satisfied with how the school cooperates with your investigation or your child’s healing (particularly for serious injuries), then you may be urged to believe that your child is no longer safe in that school. All the more is this true if the injuries sustained were intentional due to bullying.

Transferring your child to a better and safer school can give you the peace of mind that your child is safe. Plus, your kid’s mental health can also improve.

Conclusion

Schools and their respective administrators, heads, and teachers are endowed with a responsibility to ensure care and safety to students. However, accidents can still happen. And as you can see, parents have a lot of recourse available if their kids get injured at school. 

If you know your child’s injuries happened because of some negligence, don’t sleep on your right to fight for the case. After all, it’s already hard enough for parents to drop off their kids at school as they’ll be out of sight for the whole day. Consider the ideas mentioned here as you evaluate the steps you’re about to take.