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LOWELL — A Daley Middle School administrator has been disciplined for forcing a student to clean up another student’s blood as punishment for hitting him.
Assistant Principal Robert Doyle was disciplined with “appropriate action” this week, according to Superintendent of Schools Karla Brooks Baehr, who called the incident a case of “poor judgment.”
Eighth-grader Robert Scott III, who was suspended from school Tuesday, said he got in a fight with another eighth-grade boy that morning in the school’s locker room.
Scott, 14, said he hit the other boy in the face hard enough that the 13-year-old bled before Scott left to return to his classroom.
Moments later, Doyle called Scott to the main office. He said Doyle walked him into the locker room and told the janitor, who had already begun mopping the floor, to stop.
“He said, ‘No, don’t do that. He’s going to do that,’” recalled Scott. He was given a pair of gloves and instructed to clean the remaining blood off the floor and the sink with a mop.
“I was upset. I didn’t really want to touch it, but I felt like I had no choice,” Scott said.
When Magda Guzman arrived at the school to pick up her son, she said Doyle told her Scott would be suspended for three days, and that he made him to clean up the blood as an added punishment.
“I told him, ‘All right,’ and walked away,” said Guzman, who works in Lowell as an EMT for Patriot ambulance. “But when we got home, I was thinking about it. I can’t believe this (administrator) actually had my son clean up this kid’s blood. He should know better than to make a student do that.”
Baehr, who confirmed the incident, said she spoke with Guzman by phone yesterday afternoon.
“I agreed that it was a poor judgment and I apologized,” Baehr said.
She would not specify a consequence for Doyle other than to say “appropriate action” was taken, but she said in general, “In cases where staff exercise seriously poor judgment (in dealing with misbehaving students), the usual consequence is at least a written reprimand.”
Daley Middle School Principal Liam Skinner did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Despite Doyle’s poor judgment, Baehr said he was acting with a “spirit of helping youngsters see the direct consequences of their actions.”
Scott will not return to the Daley Middle School this year, and instead will attend the alternative high school at the Cardinal O’Connell building as a result of his disruptive behavior. His mother said she supports the school’s decision to transfer her son, and she also agrees with the suspension as punishment.
But forcing a student to clean up blood is completely inappropriate, agreed city Health Department Director Frank Singleton.
“Any contact with intimate bodily fluids should be handled with not just gloves, but with knowledge not to expose yourself,” he said. “Blood is a source of potential infection. That’s an adult job.”
The School Department’s custodians were trained by the department supervisor how to handle biohazardous waste when they were hired, said Baehr.
Baehr said Scott was wearing gloves when he cleaned up the blood, and that he only touched the mop handle during the task. Still, School Department officials cannot tell his mother whether the other student carries any kind of infectious disease, due to privacy laws that prohibit the district from sharing personal information about students.
Guzman said she is arranging for her son to be tested for infection by his pediatrician, just in case.
“It’s scary,” said Scott. “I don’t know what kind of germs or whatever (the other student might have). I don’t feel safe.”
Rebecca Piro’s e-mail address is [email protected].
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