What is the issue here?

Is this poor supervision by the duty staff?

Is this overcrowded playground with not enough space for children to be safe?

Is this mixing grades, taking into account the difference between a kindergarten aged child and a second grader could be as little as two years but quite a difference in size?

Is this to do with children not having enough opportunities to be able to use their major muscles?

Or is there something else here? Presumably a kindergarten play area is not available to older children, so was a rule broken? Is this due to some of the construction taking place in our elementary schools which limits free space? Is this something about the ratio between recess staff and children?

Please do not say it is because a child jumps off playground equipment because it sounds like this child does it frequently and normally there is no young child beneath to get injured. Our school children need plenty of space to be able to play at their own ability.

More information would be useful.

Zzzz….

[Post removed.]

@marc
No need to be a jerk. If the child was hospitalized the costs could run into the five or six figures. The article doesn’t list emotional distress as a damage although usually when it is, reality is it’s for attorney fees.

The older kid had been told not to do that, probably because it’s dangerous. Everyone is lucky the injured kid wasn’t hurt worse.

We can sympathize with the adults is this situation, because kids can be unpredictable, but they are not being sued personally, an insured entity is who did have responsibility for the younger child’s safety. Certainly the family of the injured child should not be left holding the bag for such serious financial consequences. I do believe that our schools do have separate playgrounds for the younger K kids. It’s unclear why they weren’t separated.

When we were kids, children seemed to be more adventurous and while injuries did occur from time to time, it was rarely from playground apparatus.

Instead of the more modern, rubberized playground surfaces, we just had sand or tanbark to brake our spills.

Oh boy. Those people who are suing apparently never played in a playground of kids before.

Come on guys - things happen and little kids do what they are told not to do. Let kids be kids, get bumps and bruises and the occasional broken part. They’ll learn from it and be better adults. And we as adults carry insurance just in case.

Oh, and now someone will want to ban slides. Just stop already.

Sorry to hear about this accident (the article didn't indicate it was done purposely by the child, so we should assume it's an accident). This must have been scary for the kid, but unfortunately these things happen. Kids don't always listen, but hopefully he will in the future. Kindergarteners are separately from the rest of the school in the first half of the year, but are transitioned to the big kid playground at the second half so they are ready to interact in first grade. As a mom of two active boys, we spent a lot of time at urgent care. It was a part of their childhood.

Hopefully the district doesn't overact and try to restrict play during recess. It's an important part of learning to navigate the world. I don't think we can even blame it on a lack of supervision, these things just happen sometimes.

Everyone who thinks this is frivolous is welcome to reach out to the family and offer to pay all of their unreimbursed medical and physical therapy, now and in the future.

Just so everyone knows, the people hardest hit these days by unreimbursed medical are the middle class, who also happen to be ineligible for the kinds of supports of various policies nationally that benefit the middle class because typically the policies don't adjust income limits by cost of living. When offering to pay their unreimbursed medical, don't forget to offer to pay for an accounting service to reduce the horrendous time burden of the paperwork on them, now and in the future, as well.

I look forward to seeing an article about how the lawsuit was dropped because a generous family for whom our medical system's costs is no big deal was willing to cover all of these expenses and consequences. Until then, accidents do happen, it's what insurance is for (for the district).

The Promise????

"The school district was allegedly aware of the second grader's prior episodes of leaping from the slide, with multiple teachers having told the boy not to do so. However, the complaint stated, "he continued to engage in dangerous behavior," and the school district continued to allow the boy to use the play area unsupervised".

Gosh, our society is soooo sue happy.

Think about what we had on the playgrounds when we were kids.

We can't take away everything that could be a potential "danger" like swings and slides. We won't be teaching our kids that its a dangerous world out there and you need to be careful.

It's always unfortunate when anyone is injured, particularly when it's just an accident on a playground. I wish this injured child a speedy recovery.

But suing the school for your child's injury on the playground is not the way to go! Kids get hurt, all the time, doing all the things they should be doing: in sports, riding bikes and scooter, climbing trees, running, playing, PE, even on the playground. It's part of life! Unless a kid is sequestered in a bubble and doesn't really get to live life, they will get hurt. Just like adults. Not to mention it's a fact that young children's bones heal very quickly.

These frivolous lawsuits for kids injuries just playing result in MORE restrictions on kids' play which is already in short supply. Kids' development REQUIRES unstructured, unsupervised play with risk. It's how their bodies and brains develop properly. Read The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt, national award winning researcher and author, best seller book. Kids are already SOOO overprotected! Plus these kids in particular have already unnecessarily lost enough through the absurd over protection and fear mongering about covid that posed infinitesimal risks to young people.

A perfect example of over protection: I recall when a previous El Carmelo Principal Chuck Merritt "outlawed" kids doing cartwheels in the grass because he said it was "too dangerous"! This absurd and ignorant restriction demonstrated that the El Carmelo administration had little knowledge of child development! Cartwheels in the grass were a perfectly GREAT way for kids to play, have fun, get exercise, let off steam, and learn a new skill!

@ Allison and Forever Name

Glad to see there are still some like-minded people out there that want kids to play in the dirt and get dirty, and not sue anyone that may be perceived as causing a bruise on their “little angel”! I was starting to think I was the only one.

Now, let’s all get out there and play!

Allison and Forever Name

Glad to see there are still some like-minded people out there that want kids to play in the dirt and get dirty, and not sue anyone that may be perceived as causing a bruise on their “little angel”! I was starting to think I was the only one.

Now, let’s all get out there and play!

And we wonder why there is a shortage of school staff. I am sorry the kid got hurt but to sue the school district? Come on!

I hope the children involved are okay. Kids will be kids. At the end of the day the district will find a way to blame someone on the ground which is why there is a shortage of staff whilst the 25 Churchill payroll keeps swelling. Why would any rank and file person put themselves on the frontline when they know the district will kick them to the curb in order to save their own reputations?

First of all, no one is suggesting kids not get dirty or play. The injured kindergartner was hospitalized and suffered injuries beyond a broken leg. If the child who caused the injury doing something they had been repeatedly told not to, and learns no lesson from this, are you going to say kids will be kids if they go out and kill someone drunk driving someday? This is not about little bruises, it's about medical care that could bankrupt someone just on the part that medical insurance doesn't pay. If you think it's nothing, you are more than welcome to offer to pay it for them and spare everyone a lawsuit.

As to the idea that Americans are lawsuit happy, that's a myth promulgated by insurance and other industries to protect themselves from any responsibility:

Too many frivolous suits? Too many lawyers? Not really.
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According to the most recent data ... only 2% of injured Americans file lawsuits. "All told, tort cases represent just 4.4% of all civil caseloads and that percentage has been steadily declining.... So we're really not all that litigious, yet we continue to be treated with kid gloves as though all it will take is a scraped knee for us to be on the phone to our lawyers."

In medical malpractice, the numbers are even lower. In Harvard's huge study, of patients who were without question injured or killed by malpractice, only 0.2% of cases resulted in a malpractice suit. That's an almost infinitesimally small number. Yes, good doctors can get sued when it's not their fault, and it's wrong when it happens (but not as often as people say). But another study found that when there is malpractice, if the party responsible owns up, there are far fewer suits.

The district has insurance that should take responsibility, if due.

Do we know anything about any follow up to the violent act that happened at JLS before the end of the school year?

These two incidents although very dissimilar are going to cost PAUSD financially as well as goodwill. When it comes down to the bottom line, it will be local property tax payers who will end up paying for any payout. This is not something any of us should willingly take without asking serious questions. They are responsible for how they spend our money as well as how they maintain their properties and protect their students and staff from injury and violence.

I am a great believer in letting children play freely. I want to know exactly why a kingergarten student was playing in the same space as a second grade student? Children will always test authority particularly when playing in recess rather than PE lessons.

When my daughter was two, she fractured her femur by suddenly jumping into a community-owned pool. I was standing right next to her and couldn't catch her. The lifeguard happened to be looking the other way at that moment, so I pulled her out and took her to the doctor. I did not sue the pool. It wasn't my fault or the guard's fault. These things happen. Good grief. Accidents happen. Kids do dumb stuff, and sometimes it is impossible to stop it.

This was an unfortunate accident, one of many which have and will continue to occur at playgrounds everywhere. The parents of then injured child blame lack of supervision. This is upsetting and unfair. Do they expect adult monitors for each slide, swing, etc?
I believe the parents have insurance - nearly every employed person does unless they're on MediCal or SSI which the government via taxpayers pay for. Any unemployed parent might volunteer to help supervise school playground activity?
The accident is regrettable, the child will recover. I don't know if the kindergartner was small for 5-6 years and the 2nd grader was big or the other way round. If size disparity is such an issue, stagger recesses separating K-1 from 2-3.
I understand why it's getting so much harder to entice teachers into the profession. If playground accidents which can happen anywhere result in litigation against school districts, with blame assigned to the staff, who'd ever want to work there? What's next, remove any play equipment more the 3 feet from the ground? Safer yet, remove all playground equipment from any schools and the City parks too. No more balls on campus either - if a kid throws one & hits another child, the parents first call might be to their lawyer. Maybe parents should have to show proof of medical insurance along with all the vaccination requirements to enroll children in schools? Yes, I realize it's the district getting sued, not the teacher, but the stress affects everyone working there.

@Consider and Chip
Do you understand the difference between your daughter’s injury from her own actions as a two-year-old, and a 7- or 8-year-old doing something they have repeatedly been told not to (because it’s dangerous) and causing serious injury to a much younger child?

None of the teachers were sued, which has happened in this district, just the district. If your child was hospitalized because of the unsafe behavior of an older child who had been told to cut it out multiple times, you’d probably want the district’s insurance to cover your kid’s unreimbursed hospital costs, too.

What if the kid was hurt in a way that requires future cosmetic or dental surgery? Having medical insurance is no guarantee of coverage. Half a million Americans were still going bankrupt on medical bills every year in 2019 despite the ACA, most insured and middle class. Again, if you think it’s no big deal, commit to pay all their bills and I’m sure they’ll be happy to take you up on it. Heck, volunteer to pay mine—unreimbursed medical was a third of our gross income last year.

If you are so worried about the stress of the suit, and think it’s no big deal, by all means, commit to paying the family’s future costs. The district personnel may even be taking responsibility but without a suit, cannot pay the settlement. Less likely given our distinct, but those things happen.

@ Silver Linings
Sometimes people are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Where was K child in relation to the slide? Did you have kids? Did you ever have to repeat instructions or did they obey you forever after 1 reprimand? Some kids like jumping. Not rare. There's no indication that the injury was intentionally caused.
Why do you forecast plastic surgery, dental repair (baby teeth), physical rehabilitation, etc? Are you a parent, friend, or relative who has "inside information?" Do share.
Why project the impact of your own medical bills?
<<unreimbursed medical was a third of our gross income last year.>>

Again, I'm sorry the child was hurt & I'm sorry you didn't have better medical insurance for yourself. I hope this is a better year for you.
Peace.

@Chip,
I know kids will be kids. As I said from the start, I am sympathetic to the adults involved.

But parents of the kindergartner sent their kid off to school and their kid ended up hospitalized with a broken leg, among other unspecified injuries, simply for being at school, not doing anything risky themselves. This indicates a serious injury in which the child could have been killed, and serious medical bills for the family even if they have insurance.

This is school. If such a condition exists, it should be addressed, and the district’s insurance should cover costs. The article said the kid who caused it had been told to stop, so clearly adults already recognized a problem with that situation.

Are you saying the kid who likes to jump can’t jump somewhere without risking lives of other kids? Or that adults were incapable of meting out restrictions if the kid engaging in behavior that could harm or kill little kids wouldn’t stop, including involving the kid’s parents?

Whether it’s intentional or not, if your kid rounds a bend too fast and drives into someone’s house, harming a family, your kid is responsible. You may end up responsible too even if you weren’t driving. Because someone has to pay for the damage and it sure as heck isn’t the harmed family. Maybe the kid driving likes to drive fast. It doesn’t change responsibility even if the driver is a 2nd grader who doesn’t know better. The adults in charge are legally responsible.

We do not have such serious injuries in our schools every day. If we did, the community would demand action. Yet these things do happen, it’s why the district has insurance.

I have “good” insurance. The problem is our system. I’m one of millions of middle class stuck in a ridiculous system. You spoke as if the family’s having insurance means they don’t have big costs. If you don’t believe it, you can offer to pay them. In my own case, I’d be happier if you’d pay for an accountant so I have my life back.

@ Silver Linings
You seem obsessed with costs of medical care, yours & what you imagine & project for a kindergartner. Maybe you need a better insurance agent? I'll bet I know more than you do about catastrophic medical events: cancer patient with intermittent remissions for 40 years (3 different kinds.) Scans every 6 months now, more surgeries than I can count on all my fingers & toes + radiation, chemotherapy. Recently, my foot was shattered due to someone else's negligence, not malice. 2 more surgeries & 3 months not being able to take even 1 step. Did I sue? No and I never have. Reality is that humans are imperfect. Errors & accidents do happen.
Parents send kids to school for socialization training, learning, and exposure to not available at home. In return parents get several hours a day when they can work, play, or sleep without watching their own kids. No public school district can provide a student-teacher ratio which can watch each kid all the time. Try privayte schools for that & expect to pay far more than the current property tax rate can offer.
It's sad that a 5 or 6 year old kindergartner was injured & that s/he was in the jump path of a 7-8 year old. Maybe there was more than 1 kid that day who needed staff attention? Maybe you'd like to volunteer as an occasional playground supervisor? Thought not, just as I have no interest in paying your medical bills. How about we each take care of our own responsibilities & stop promoting a litigious vendetta against a 2nd grader and a public school district?
Peace.

I can state plainly that when teachers bring up behavior concerns district administrators tend to ignore them until something like this happens. Over time, teachers and staff just give up. The paradigm goes something like this:

1. The administrator does not want to get involved for fear of some sort of blowback (what the district calls "risk management").

2. The teacher or staff member picks up on that "unwritten message" and decides not to put themselves at risk either. In other words, administration is not acting for a reason, and that reasoning must be good enough for the teacher or staff member not to act either.

Kind of a Catch 22, but that is the environment that has been created. Chalk it up to a host of reasons: fear of parent complaints (Title IX gets thrown around constantly), fear of liability, fear of administrators blaming staff, fear of administrators being held accountable, which then leads to 25 Churchill's fear of all the above. Hence everyone is looking out for their own safety by ignoring what is happening right in front of their eyes. I've seen it many times in my career and have even been on the receiving end of a spurious Title IX complaint that was withdrawn when the facts came out. I was trying to prevent students from skateboarding in the halls right after school and was accused of being sexist because the skateboarders were female. Lesson: don't get involved next time.

Toxic yes. It is a sad form of self-preservation, especially when kids get hurt. But it is the world we live in and the world we've created. I hope there is a way to halt the runaway train, but I would not look to 25 Churchill for answers or "promises".

@Chip
Why so obsessed with making the victim pay here? The article says the complaint asks for “hospital and medical expenses”. This means there were unreimbursed expenses. Lawsuits are expensive and stressful—costs must have been significant. If the parent has insurance, the insurer will subrogate, probably asking the district insurance to pay whether or not the parent sues. This happens when there are large bills and 3rd party responsibility.

Things do happen in life. Again, this is why they have insurance. What is the point in piling on to the victim as you and others are?

The fact that medical bills are no big deal to you has no relevance here, neither has my volunteering in school (which sounds like I’ve done a lot more than you, to answer your irrelevant rhetorical question); again, you are welcome to put your money where your mouth is by paying the victim’s bill. No one expects you to, but it’s hypocritical to criticize the victim for asking that their bills be covered by insurance, portraying it as no big deal, yet you won’t pay it to allow them to avoid the suit. I only brought up my medical bills because having insurance does not mean you have no bills, as others implied.

Whether you or anyone else sued over something that happened to you has no bearing here. I could have sued the district, too, and had to practically sit on my hands while they made things even worse and created a slam dunk exposure thinking they were reducing their liability when all they were doing was hurting kids even more. When you don’t sue, though, our district will never admit to or fix it’s errors. I’m not suggesting that’s what’s going on here, I don’t know. Someone’s insurance covering a damage is what insurance exists for. Doesn’t sound like the parents sued the other family, either.

Shame on you for piling on and essentially blaming the victim for what happened. If you want to take responsibility, have at it. Don’t tell a victim what they should do.

I am no expert, but it seems to me that two different things are at play here.

PAUSD should have insurance to cover this type of thing. This was a playground accident and since there was a staff member yard duty it was during school hours. In the same way that if an accident happens in say PE class, district insurance should be such that nobody needs to sue for medical bills. OSHA gets involved for injuries on the job for any type of worker being paid to do a job of work, and this seems similar to me. If this is not the case then I obviously don't understand insurance.

This is the second issue of injury at PAUSD sites recently. JLS teacher being attacked while teaching is the other one. While very different scenarios, it does show that PAUSD should have good insurance protection.

I don't think it is up to the community to have to sue or fund for medical expenses. It sounds more like the contagion of suing just because they can.

Just my opinion.

@Bystander,
I agree with you until you got to your conclusion. Read the links I provided above. Lawsuits are hard. Insurers very often are the reason people have to sue. There are strict time limits, too—often people have to file to protect their rights, even if they would prefer to negotiate, but then they have no control over when things move forward. Much of what the public believes about lawsuits is an unrealistic mixture of what they see on TV and insurance companies’ campaigns to reduce payouts even for legitimate suits and claims. Our courts are actually dominated by business contract disputes; tort claims make up only a tiny fraction that continues to fall.

I agree with you that insurance should cover the accident losses here. The fact that those are the subject of the complaint makes clear the family had to file suit for that.

By the way, I don’t know anything about this case except what is reported here and have no personal involvement. I just really am disheartened by all the piling on against the victim here, a child who went to school one day and it put them in the hospital with apparently large medical bills. The fact that there is a suit is a sign of lack of support. I feel really sorry for what they have endured.

Yes, the child who was seriously injured should be the focus. I hope district insurance covers such accidents and that the family of the child won't face any financial hardships as a result.

So is the lawsuit aimed more at the insurer than at the district itself? Is it the case that the district would be happy to cover the claim, but not so with the insurer? Might the insurer be contending that the district acted in a manner that nullifies the policy? I hope this all works out in favor of the child with the broken leg.

It would sure be great if 25 Churchill spent some time training staff regarding these matters so they don't feel as if they are "hanging in the wind" if the outcome of staff intervention does not please all stakeholders. Are staff members insured against suit if a parent does not like the way an incident was handled? Can parents or other stakeholders pressure administrators to punish staff in a case such as this?

I think the point about PE injuries is well taken, and hopefully applies to all staff who are supposed to do their best to provide a safe learning experience. I still think staff are the easiest to blame in these cases, so hopefully they are duly insured by the district. In 27 years I don't recall that ever being mentioned in staff meetings or trainings.

13 years ago when my kid was in Kinder at Addison. The school asked for parent volunteers to watch the students playing in the playground during recess on some days. They wanted to make sure there's enough supervisions otherwise the playground would be closed. Therefore, parents signed up for the 20 mins volunteer time and make sure the students could PLAY. I wish the parents could help out if they were available.

Dear AYC,

Availability to volunteer is tough for many parents. They need to work. Great idea, but then one must assume the parent can handle school children or adolescents that are not their own. Mr. Austin made a big deal about parent volunteers a few years back, but they cannot really intervene in certain situations without training or license. Parents are great helpers in many ways, but supervising areas that should be watched by trained staff may not be the best model. A school should be sufficiently staffed with paid professionals. That will never be cheap. Volunteers can certainly help if trained well, but money must be spent to prepare volunteers too.

Your intentions are great.

Good solutions don't come at a discount.

@Retired teacher,
Yes, I think the public usually have no idea how much skill, experience, and training go into managing a classroom of kids, often without the aides of yesteryear. I wasn’t going to post again, but wanted to express gratitude for your work.

Once again, I still don't know exactly what "negligence" caused this.

Was it the mixing of kindergartners with older children?
Was it the paid staff yard duty being too busy dealing with another issue?
Was it the ratio of personnel to children playing?
Was it lack of training for the playground supervisor/paid personnel?
Was it overcrowding on lack of sufficient playground space?

Where was the "negligence"?

Accidents can happen even in the best circumstances, but calling this negligence should be better defined.

@ silver linings, my child had a lifetime injury (half of a front permanent tooth knocked out) at school from an ill behaved child. First grade. Child, who happened to be a person of color and who repeatedly behaved recklessly, was minimally reprimanded because he “came from a challenged background,” according to the school.
We didn’t sue though we were saddened our child was injured by the careless uncaring child. This was at a small private Christian school where children were generally orderly and they had an excellent basic early academic curriculum despite not being high resource. It was not an elite place. It was not in Palo Alto.
An interesting aside: The first grade curriculum (that’s the only year my child was there) laid a solid foundation for my child’s future (we know this since my child is > 30 now). No kooky state of CA Mathematics curriculum, for a very direct example.

Kids will be kids, and they get hurt. If they're active. The school yard supervisor walked away to attend to another child. You can't be everywhere.

The guardian is suing because he/she can. I don't see any negligence either but I'm not an attorney.

Is the guardian the parent?

Parents can easily volunteer at schools if they have the time. It doesn't take any "special" training to keep an eye on the kids and see to it they behave. If you're good with kids (that's all it takes) sometimes it's easier to handle children that aren't your own. The emotional connection is lacking and you might find it easier to make better judgments.

So much for discipline in California public schools! Here’s news:
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