My Daughter with SEN was left hungry at school

[Dolphin7]

I'm just after advice really, a child in my DDs class was confirmed as being Covid-19 positive (he's fine asymptomatic), the whole class was sent home. My phone had run out of battery (Typical!! The only time my phone doesn't have charge!!) and I was unreachable. My other half had been contacted and could not collect earlier than the normal collection time due to work commitments and travel etc. I was able to charge my phone and received the messages mid afternoon, therefore I was only able to collect my daughter 20mins earlier than her normal collection time. When I did collect her she told me she hadn't been allowed to have lunch because of the Covid-19 case in her class (not being allowed to enter the lunch hall I understand, but no one thought to feed her at all!!), so she'd been left to go hungry the whole day apart from some birthday sweets she found in her bag!! Am I being unreasonable to be upset that the school allowed my daughter with SEN (she's on the autistic spectrum) to go hungry the whole day? I understand that I should have been contactable and I always am, just very unfortunate that on the only day ever that my phone didn't charge properly I needed it the most 😫
What would you do now? Complain to the school or beyond?
Thank you in advance for any advice given 🙂

I'm would just mention it to the school as a concern for next time . They still have duty of care for children up until they are collected by parents . I presume they ate lunch themselves .

Surely an emergency contact really shouldn’t be picking up a child because of covid exposure? Many people who are emergency contacts probably only expect to be contacted if it is actually an emergency. The kids had presumably already spent part of the day in school, surely the best thing was to actually keep her at school until a parent arrived.

I think you are feeling guilty because you know very well that you should have been available to pick her up - like every other child but you were not and now you are projecting into the school. The fact she has SEN is irrelevant to this and you are using it as a lever to make it sound worse. If you are so concerned about the fragility of your child you should have made sure that an emergency contact is always available. This one is in you - not the school

We moved house when ours were at primary school, but both worked 60+ miles away in London. We couldn’t have got back in under 2+ hours, knew no-one at school, and had no family living nearby

That seems the height of irresponsibility, how bloody awful for kids if they were ill or injured. And how unfair on the staff. Modern parenting blows my mind.

Omg the comments on this thread are ridiculous! How was dad supposed to pick up his child if he's physically unable? Or get someone else to, because everyone has parents or close friends near by ridiculous. I'd be complaining to the school that your dauguter was not fed, she was still there for the school day and that is shocking! And my dad used to work up and down the country, can remember they couldn't get hold of my mum once so rang him, he said sorry love I'm 400 miles away so can't exactly come get her and we only had mum and dad. It happens.

I do think your DH should have either checked and confirmed you were able to collect her, or else arranged for an alternative. And yes, she should have been fed.

You can't blame the school for this. If she had been collected immediately as they requested she would have been fed. They aren't going to have protocols in place for feeding children that shouldn't be there. And quite apart from not being fed, she must have felt awful sitting on her own waiting for a parent to show up.

You say your husband was too far away /work commitments to collect her - I bet if the message had been that she was being bluelighted to hospital not going into quarantine he would have made the journey. From the moment he got that phonecall asking him to pick her up he was responsible for ensuring that was done ASAP rather than just leaving her there. Why didn't he ring one of her classmates parents and ask them to take care of her for a couple of hours?

The takeaways from this are to make sure your phone is always charged, start to build a network of parents who you help out and who do the same for you (an absolute lifesaver for us) and to nominate additional emergency contacts. And apologise to your daughter.

They should have sorted her something at lunch. However, putting in a complaint would be completely unreasonable. A couple of hours without lunch will do her no harm. And the staff would have been very busy organising for everyone to get home safely and to prepare for ten days of remote learning. Missed meals in normal contacts, sure complain. Missed meals in this situation? Completely understandable.

"It happens."

You are completely missing the point. It shouldn't. Parents are supposed to arrange for a back up, so their child can be collected.

@roobicoobi

The OP made no reference to this being an issue for her daughter's routine. The issue was told as being angry the school didn't feed her.

I don't think we need to generalise re autism here. Daughter did not appear to be upset about a missed routine which is good

YANBU and I’d want to know why they forgot to feed her. Presumably someone was sat with her or was she left in a room alone until you collected her?

Clearly, you can’t ask other people to collect her if she’s supposed to be isolating due to Covid. I’d have thought that was pretty obvious. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Many of us don’t have family nearby who can just step in and collect our children at short notice. You can’t magic up a spare granny from nowhere!

Missing lunch no problem at all in the context of a global.pandemic. Not collecting her pronto, no problem at all in the context of a global pandemic.

Surely if your dh couldn't collect her and your mobile was out of charge, there would have been an alternative way of contacting you ? Does your dh not have a landline number for you or a work landline number, or a neighbours number who could have popped round to tell you the school were trying to contact you ?

@Killahangilion

YANBU and I’d want to know why they forgot to feed her. Presumably someone was sat with her or was she left in a room alone until you collected her?

Clearly, you can’t ask other people to collect her if she’s supposed to be isolating due to Covid. I’d have thought that was pretty obvious. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Many of us don’t have family nearby who can just step in and collect our children at short notice. You can’t magic up a spare granny from nowhere!

No, you can't magic people up. Which is why parents with no one else on the list have to be contactable. OP dropped the ball. Her DH dropped the ball. Why should catering staff risk covid / even more classes isolating because OP can't charge a phone?

How long would it take for your OH to drive to the school? I can’t imagine it would take him 4 hours (assuming school called at 11 and school finished at 3). What would’ve happened if your DD was badly injured or had the vomiting bug and the school couldn’t get hold of you? Would your OH still prioritise work over his own DC? The school probably didn’t give your DD lunch because they assumed one of her parents would be picking her up soon. Poor girl would’ve been in isolation waiting for her dad.

We moved house when ours were at primary school, but both worked 60+ miles away in London. We couldn’t have got back in under 2+ hours, knew no-one at school, and had no family living nearby how did you manage drop off/pick up every day? Were the children in breakfast and afterschool club from 7-7 every day? (Working that on a average work day of 9-5) must have been knackering for everyone!

They made a mistake, you made a mistake.

The school probably never imagined that it would take 3 hours for someone to collect her from school, especially as they spoke to her dad.

What was he doing during the time he couldn't leave? Calling round people?

Why couldn't he have called another parent from her class since all the children had been together?

I think it's terrible she wasn't offered food.

Presumably A.N.Other emergency contact might refuse to collect in these circumstances anyway.
Given they would be exposing themselves and their household to the potentially infectious child.

I don’t know OP, it’s a lesson for the future I guess.
I don’t see how complaining will help here.

@Killahangilion

YANBU and I’d want to know why they forgot to feed her. Presumably someone was sat with her or was she left in a room alone until you collected her?

Clearly, you can’t ask other people to collect her if she’s supposed to be isolating due to Covid. I’d have thought that was pretty obvious. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Many of us don’t have family nearby who can just step in and collect our children at short notice. You can’t magic up a spare granny from nowhere!

Surely you make decisions based on your circumstances though? If you don't have any family, you need to cultivate relationships with friends, or paid babysitters, or work near school, or send your child to school near work?

@DarcyLewis

‘ Why couldn't he have called another parent from her class since all the children had been together?’

^Although that’s a good idea for the future ^

Maybe Dad didn’t have contact details for any other parents but it’s worth ensuring you both do from now on.

OP this is not really the school’s fault. In these times you know that this can happen and it’s down to you and your DH to ensure you are always contactable and always able to pick up your child at short notice. You’re just trying to shift blame to the school when you should be looking at yourselves.

Adding to my comment - i think you do need to tell the school she didnt get lunch and ask them to update their procedures to include how to give lunch in this situation. It is likely to arise again with other children as actually emergency contacts arent going to want to pick up in this instance.

The issue of picking up children when ill is always contentious. I work in a school office in a commuter town so its really not unususal to hear both parents are 3 hours away. Its just part of the role.

You should always have your phone charged up. Pretty sure there’s electricity in most places these days.

I’d be annoyed about the meal but I’d let it go as the only emergency contact the school were able to speak with was unable to do anything to collect his child quicker then normal pick up. Pretty useless whatever the circumstances.

Notwithstanding, I would use this as an opportunity to discuss with DD what had happened, why you were unable to get to her, why she was left alone for hours and what she could have done to get some food. She must have been terribly confused as to why all her classmates were collected and she was not.