An East County mother is demanding answers from the Santee Unified School District after her child was left outside, in extreme heat, at Cajon Park School in Santee Thursday.
Ieisha Floyd said school staff called and explained her second-grader, Arionah Floyd Lawson, 7, developed a stomach ache and fever while at school.
“They told me that my daughter, Arionah, had an upset stomach and unfortunately she had a fever of 101.3 and that she needed to be picked up," Floyd said.
Floyd said she explained to the staff that she was with her other daughter who was undergoing a dental procedure and she would get to 7-year-old Arionah as soon as possible. She said about 45 minutes later, she arrived at the nurse’s office only to find Arionah outside. Temperatures were near the triple digits outside.
“My daughter was crying. She was sweating. It was extremely hot, especially with a fever, her body is already hot…This was not supposed to happen. I thoroughly read the protocol as to what’s supposed to happen if a child does fall ill at school and nowhere in that procedure did it state a child would be placed outside,” said Floyd.
She said it was already a difficult decision to send her daughter back to the classroom, but felt confident with the school’s safe reopening plan until the procedures were put into practice. Floyd said she spoke with the principal at Cajon Park School Friday morning.
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“He did inform me that there was an isolation area that they were supposed to go to which was the multipurpose room, so why wasn’t my daughter taken there?" Floyd argued.
According to Dr. Kristin Baranski, Superintendent of Santee School District, the child was supervised. She provided NBC 7 with the following statement:
“The child was supervised, just outside the health office in a shaded area where other children would not be allowed to sit/gather. During the time this child was being attended to, another student came to the office with a medical emergency and our health office needed to quickly separate the children. We do have an indoor room at the school for a symptomatic child to wait for a parent but in this situation, the health staff needed to act quickly and made this decision in the best interest of both children.”
Floyd said Arionah went to the doctor after the incident and was slightly dehydrated. She also said Arionah no longer had a fever as of Friday morning and was feeling better.
“I do have faith that this will be resolved, I just don’t have the faith to send my kids back to school,” said Floyd.
She said Arionah and her 8-year-old sister, who also attends Cajon Park School, will be learning from home moving forward.
“If this happened to my daughter, it can happen to any other kid. I wasn’t aware of this and I’m sure there are many other parents that aren’t aware that this can possibly happen to them,” Floyd said.
Floyd filed an incident report with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department.
