Minnesota School Injury Attorneys
Every parent fears a call from their child’s school in the middle of the day. Schools never phone parents unless there is some kind of emergency. Your child has thrown up at school and needs to recover at home. Or there was a discipline problem and you need to come pick them up. Or they failed to turn in homework for a while week and you need to turn their backpack upsidedown later that night. So you get used to not worrying too much.
Eventually, parents get calm about it and maybe your heart doesn’t jump out of your chest every time you see the school on caller ID. But what about when the worst actually happens and the school calls to tell you that your child has been injured on the playground? This is in the rolodex of worst nightmares for any parent and just for a moment, all the awful possibilities flash through your mind, with every fearful scenario worse than the last. Badly scraped, broken limb, or a concussion from falling.
As you race over to the school, you wonder if they will ever fully recover. If it’s a simple accident or if you will need to sue the school for negligence. And if you do need to sue the school… would they tell you the whole truth about the incident?
Schoolyard Injuries Happen All the Time
On one hand, children getting hurt on the playground or during PE class — or even playing to rough in the classroom. Kids are constantly showing off their collection of scrapes and bruises they got from playing. Most parents don’t sweat the little stuff, remembering what it’s like to be kids themselves and how annoying it was for grownups to make a big fuss about minor injuries.
The bigger stuff is more serious. A bloody wound from falling off the bicycle or a sprained wrist from a gymnastics stunt gone wrong. These things can also be perfectly normal kid stuff, the result of playing and games and learning physical skills. And you wouldn’t dream of telling your child to stop riding their bike or playing on the playground because sometimes they fall or get scraped. But you also couldn’t bear being a negligent parent and exposing your child to an overlooked danger.
So the first question is whether or not your child’s school injury was the normal event of play. Chances are that the school will tell you that it was. That is not only in their best interest, it may be how they experienced the injury. However, that is not guaranteeably the case. If you feel that you’re not getting the whole story, or your child said something to raise alarms, it’s time to get to the bottom of the issue. Which may be harder than it sounds.
Getting the Story From the Kids
The first step, naturally, is to ask your child what happened. They trust you and are the most likely person to tell you the entire story, beginning to end, as they remember it. The age of your child will determine how well they relate the events and how aware they were of circumstances, but you will at least have a framework to go on.
From there, you can start building a timeline by talking to other people who were on the scene. With permission and care, you should be able to talk to a few other children who may have seen or been involved in the incident to get their perspective. While their testimony won’t be strong in court, many children telling different perspectives of the same story can give you a clearer picture of what happened.
Talking to the Teachers
Teachers are your second best source of information. They will have an adult’s perspective and ability to relay details, but they may also be aware of the liability risk and want to protect themselves or the school. There will always be at least one teacher who -should- have witnessed the incident, though sometimes school supervision is stretched tight enough that the teacher was occupied with other students at the time.
If the incident happened during recess, then more than one teacher should have been present, and possibly also teacher’s aides who are in training and, therefore, may be less invested in protecting the school from liability charges.
We suggest you talk to multiple teachers. Approach as a concerned parent who wants to get the story straight with no mention of liability or suing. This is the best way to get honest and helpful answers about what everyone saw and was doing at the time of the accident. Even if one teacher wants to avoid answering questions, teachers are caring and responsible people. There is likely to be at least one who is eager to give you the whole story as best as it can be told or pieced together from what they witnessed or have heard talked about in the break room.
Talking to the Admins
The admin staff of the school are the least likely to be helpful because they are the most likely to be aware of the risk of a liability suit. Admins are also less commonly around the children during PE and recess time, though it’s not unheard of for principals and office staff to take a turn supervising play.
Try to talk to school admins outside of their offices where they feel powerful and official. Instead, meet outside or even off school grounds at a local cafe in order to balance the power dynamic and meet as a concerned parent to a professional educator. You just want to get the facts straight, find out what happened, and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
After this kind of investigating, you should be able to piece together a fairly clear idea of who was supervising, how safe the situation was, and whether the children were allowed to play in an unsafe way. It may be that there were not enough teachers watching the playground, that there’s an area where children can get out of sight of supervision, or even that the teachers did everything they could have but something else went wrong.
Child Injured At School? Contact Us Today
Whether your child’s injury was the fault of the school, the teachers, the playground manufacturers, or a simple tragic result of enthusiastic play is something you can only determine after you get the full story. But this may be a story the school will be hesitant to share for fear of liability. You can get to the bottom of what caused your child’s injury and make the responsible party accept their fault with the help of an experienced personal injury attorney. For more information on how to get the help you need to pay for your child’s recovery or to consult on your unique case, contact us today. Our legal team is ready to help you in any way we can.