4-year-old boy experiences heat exhaustion under St. John Catholic School’s care, requiring ER visit, mother says

photo by: Dylan Lysen/Lawrence Journal-World

St. John Catholic School's preschool, located at 1244 Kentucky St. The preschool shares a parking lot with the St. John Catholic Church.

A local mother of a 4-year-old boy recently received a call that every parent would dread: St. John Catholic School’s preschool educators last week urgently demanded that she come pick up her child, who appeared to be ill.

When the mother — whom the Journal-World has chosen not to name to protect the privacy of her son — arrived at the school at 1244 Kentucky St., she found him seemingly passed out outside of the preschool building, flushed and drenched in sweat.

The mother said a teacher for the preschool was standing at the school’s front door, trying to keep her son away from the rest of the students, who were all indoors. What’s more, Douglas County was under a heat advisory at the time, meaning being outside while showing signs of heat exhaustion was one of the worst places he could be.

“They put him out on the porch like a dog,” she said.

Why the boy was left outside amid the heat advisory when apparently suffering from heat exhaustion confused and scared the mother, who works for the Ballard Center and has direct experience in early-childhood care and education. While she was able to pick up her child, she would soon need to rush him to the hospital for emergency medical treatment.

How the incident could have happened was beyond the mother. She said that after her son recovered she began asking questions, but received no satisfactory answers.

Leaders for the school, including Principal Chris Reffett, did not respond to repeated calls or emails from the Journal-World requesting comment and clarification. A representative for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, which oversees Catholic schools in northeast Kansas, told the Journal-World on Tuesday that the incident was under investigation and that the school would not comment.

“The safety of the children in each (of) our schools is our utmost concern,” Vince Cascone, superintendent of schools for the archdiocese, told the Journal-World in an email. “Until we conclude our investigation we cannot comment any further.”

Before speaking to the Journal-World, the mother said she sat down with school leaders — Reffett and the boy’s preschool teacher — who she felt did not offer much of an explanation for the incident or provide any assurances that the school would take corrective measures. She also said they never asked about her son’s condition after the incident.

Upset and bewildered, the mother said she withdrew her son from the school, which she previously believed would help her son academically for years to come. She also filed a complaint with the Kansas Department for Children and Families, which investigates cases of child abuse and neglect.

“All I want is my kid to have a good education; that’s all I was after,” the mother told the Journal-World. “It’s hard when your child is in someone’s care and it all goes wrong.”

The incident

Prior to the incident, the boy attended two preschools. He would spend the mornings at the Ballard Center, then the afternoon at St. John. The mother said that morning — Tuesday, Aug. 24 — while at Ballard, he appeared normal and did not have any issues. He also seemed fine when he was dropped off at St. John that afternoon, she said.

But she said when they arrived, she was surprised to see other students outside because Douglas County was under a heat advisory at the time. Many northeast Kansas counties were under the advisory for several days because of extreme heat, the National Weather Service office in Topeka said in a social media post that day.

As an employee for the Ballard Center, which is a state-licensed child care and preschool facility, the mother said the way she understood state guidelines was that it’s advised that children not be outdoors when such a heat advisory is in effect. When the mother asked about it, a teacher told her the children were outside for only 15 minutes. Additionally, the children go to the school with water bottles in their backpacks.

However, a few hours later, the mother received the call. A teacher said her son appeared flushed, lethargic and not himself, she said. That’s when the school asked her to come pick him up. The mother began to worry, asking if he was sick, but she said the teacher told her the boy did not have a fever. Somewhat relieved, the mother said she had a meeting and asked the boy’s grandfather to pick the boy up.

But things changed when she told the school the grandfather would pick the boy up in about 40 minutes. The teacher said that was not soon enough. So the mother “dropped everything” and went to go pick up her son, she said.

When she arrived, her son was out on the porch of the preschool alone and “passed out,” the mother said. Additionally, his clothes appeared drenched with sweat and his skin was red. The mother said she could see the teacher standing in the doorway of the school, keeping the rest of the students indoors.

When she asked what was going on, the mother said the teacher told her cold air from the school building was blowing on the boy, suggesting he was fine. However, the teacher told her the boy now had a fever, the mother said.

Although the boy’s symptoms appeared to be a case of heat exhaustion — a condition whose symptoms include heavy sweating, faintness, fatigue and nausea, according to the Mayo Clinic — the mother said the teacher seemed to think the only possibility was COVID-19. The teacher told the mother that the boy needed to be tested for the virus and was required to be symptom-free before he could return to the school, the mother said, and she also told the mother that no other students were exhibiting symptoms and that the boy had to be kept away from them.

The mother said she again began asking questions, such as how long the children were outside. The teacher again said they were outside for less than 15 minutes, which the mother said she couldn’t believe.

“I could tell he was overheated,” the mother said.

After leaving, the mother called the boy’s pediatrician to report his symptoms. Noting that the boy was not yet vomiting, a nurse said he could see a doctor in about an hour. However, the boy’s condition would begin to deteriorate shortly thereafter. While waiting at the mother’s parents’ house, the boy began to vomit. The pediatrician’s office said the vomit meant the issue was now an emergency and the boy needed to be taken to the ER.

At the ER, the mother told a doctor that the school said the boy was only outside for about 15 minutes. While the doctor said that generally isn’t enough time to cause an issue of heat exhaustion, the boy was showing signs of it.

To treat the heat exhaustion, the hospital did blood work and administered intravenous fluids. The mother said she and the boy were “there forever” to get the results. The doctor also tested the boy for COVID because of the school’s insistence that the test was needed, the mother said. The boy’s test came back negative.

The doctor told the mother the issue appeared to be heat exhaustion, which was noted in medical records provided to the Journal-World. The boy was discharged from the hospital that evening, but has not returned to the school.

Lack of oversight?

Later that week, the mother wanted a meeting with the school to discuss the incident. She met with Reffett and the preschool teacher and asked what documentation the school had for what led to her son ending up in the ER. The school told her it had none, she said.

She then asked how long her son had been outside, with the school now telling her he had been outside for 25 minutes, 10 minutes longer than she had been told previously, she said.

“I was furious,” the mother said.

Northeast Kansas counties were under a heat advisory at the time of the incident, with the hottest parts of the day coming between 2 and 5 p.m., the National Weather Service in Topeka said in the social media post. According to the service, the high temperature that day was 96 degrees.

“Drink plenty of fluids and take frequent breaks if you are outdoors,” the station said in the post. “Seek air conditioned places if possible.”

The mother said she asked if the school knew the signs of heat exhaustion, to which the school leaders told her no, she said. The mother said she also grilled the leaders on several other issues, like what the school’s protocol is for sick children, whether the school could have quarantined her son indoors if COVID had been the real issue, and other things. She said their answers were unsatisfactory and they could not provide her with any written policies for those issues either.

She also told the Journal-World that she didn’t know who was going to pay for the ER visit because she can’t afford it herself.

Unsatisfied with the school, the mother filed the complaint with the Department for Children and Families on Saturday. The complaint means the school could potentially be subjected to an investigation for child abuse or neglect.

However, reports of abuse and neglect and subsequent investigations are confidential, the department’s director of public affairs, Mike Deines, told the Journal-World. He said the department could neither confirm nor deny that it was investigating the school over the incident. The mother, though, told the Journal-World a representative for the department has already begun looking into the matter.

The mother said she would never take her child back to St. John because of a fear that something worse could happen in the future.

“Working in child care you hear horror stories of someone making a complaint and then the child goes back under their care and something happens,” the mother said. “There’s no way I’m taking my kid back there.”

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