Two years ago, the son of Pritam and Priya Chandani tripped over a mound of snow and injured his head and leg. Instead of helping the student, teachers allegedly told him to crawl back to his classroom, claims a lawsuit filed Tuesday according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
According to the Times, the Chadanis claim their son was first instructed to cross a mound of snow on the Devonshire Elementary School playground Jan. 3, 2010. After informing the teachers he had been injured and couldn't walk, the suit filed in Cook County Circuit Court then alleges that his teachers told him to crawl through the snow and back to the school.
The negligence suit claims the student complied. He crawled across the playground, through the school and into the classroom.
The Chandanis seek more than $200,000 in damages, noting that the teachers failed to alert medical services to assist the student back to the school.
The incident comes after Damion Robinson, a 2nd grader at R. J. Hoyland Elementary School in Texas, was told by school officials to walk home across a freeway.
According to KPRC, a woman stopped Robinson when he was close to his neighborhood and called his mother.
In July, a report that implicated more than 180 Atlanta teachers for dishonest testing practices pointed out that one teacher at the Fain Elementary School in Atlanta, Ga., was forced to crawl under a table at a faculty meeting because her students' test scores were low, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The incident at Fain Elementary exemplifies findings from the Atlanta cheating scandal investigation, which concluded that a high-stakes, high-pressure environment that emphasized test scores as part of a teacher pay scheme led educators to extreme measures and fueled a culture of cheating, fear and intimidation. Many have pointed the finger at then-Atlanta superintendent Beverly Hall, blaming her for fostering that culture and shaming teachers who do not produce the desired results. Hall has repeatedly denied those allegations.