Earlier this week, an eighth-grader in Killeen, Texas suffered an asthma attack in class. When it became apparent that it was taking too long for help to arrive, one of her classmates took it upon himself to take her to the school nurse himself. So he got a medal for being a hero, right? Nope. He got suspended from school.
On Tuesday morning, Anthony Ruelas was sitting in his eighth-grade class at Gateway Middle School in Killeen when a girl in his class who happened to be a close friend complained that she couldn’t breathe. She started gagging and wheezing. The teacher told everyone to stay in their seats while she emailed the school nurse.
However, when the nurse didn’t reply in a timely fashion, Anthony took matters into his own hands. He and his mother, Mandy Cortes, told KCEN-TV in Temple what happened next. Watch here.
Anthony told KCEN’s Rissa Shaw that after three minutes, he picked up his friend and took her to the nurse’s office himself. To Anthony’s surprise, his teacher sent him to the office on a disciplinary referral for walking out of class without permission. He was then suspended for two days. Naturally, Anthony was dumbfounded. “I’m suspended for this?” he wondered.
When Cortes picked him up, she initially didn’t want to hear Anthony’s side of the story. However, like any mother, Cortes could tell the situation was weighing on him. “You know your kids,” she said. But then she read the referral note.
“During 5th period another student complained that she couldn’t breathe and was having an asthma attack. As I waited for a response from the nurse the student fell out of her chair to the floor. Anthony proceeded to go over and pick her up, saying ‘f—k that we ain’t got time to wait for no email from the nurse.’ He walks out of class and carries the other student to the nurse.”
Cortes was mystified. She admitted that Anthony probably shouldn’t have said the F-word, but doesn’t understand how Anthony could have been suspended for taking his friend to the nurse when it was clear that “he could have saved her life.” Incredibly, Gateway officials called Cortes the next day wondering why Anthony wasn’t at school. She had to remind them of the suspension.
Perhaps someone in the school’s administrative wing who didn’t have his or her head up his or her rear realized they’d made a terrible mistake. If anyone should have gotten sent home for a few days, it should have been the teacher and the principal. There are times when there is no place for standard operating procedure–and this was one of them. Did it occur to the teacher that since the nurse was taking her time firing off a response, something should have been done to save that girl? What if this was her daughter? My girlfriend, who is a teacher herself, told me about this story. She said that if she’d been in that situation, she’d have called the office herself to get help.
I also have to wonder what the principal was thinking. Any administrator worth his salt would have sized up the situation and realized that Anthony wasn’t being insubordinate, but was acting out of concern for a friend’s health. It makes the official statement from the Killeen Independent School District sound particularly obscene. Superintendent John Craft said that the district “applauds the efforts of students who act in good faith to assist others in time of need.” Uh huh. So when Anthony acted in good faith to help a friend in time of need, he gets a black slur on his record that could hamper him in the future?
Anthony himself has no regrets; he told Shaw with virtually no hesitation that he would “most definitely” help his friend again in a similar situation. The girl is doing well; she texted Anthony on Wednesday to let him know she was feeling better.
Cortes is seriously considering homeschooling Anthony. I would as well, unless district officials apologize to Anthony and scrub this outrageous suspension from his record. As much as I believe in the public schools, I’d have serious reservations about sending any child of mine to school in this district if this is how it treats kids who do the right thing.
