As the school bus rolled to a stop outside her Lake County home, Beth Jones adjusted the bright yellow document protruding from the pouch of her daughter's wheelchair, making sure it was clearly visible. Posted on 12/10/2007 10:11:05 AM PST by Sopater
As the school bus rolled to a stop outside her Lake County home, Beth Jones adjusted the bright yellow document protruding from the pouch of her daughter's wheelchair, making sure it was clearly visible.
In bold letters it warned, "Do Not Resuscitate."
The DNR order goes everywhere with Katie, including her 2nd-grade classroom at Laremont School in Gages Lake. The school is part of the Special Education District of Lake County, where an emotional two-year discussion ended this summer when officials agreed to honor such directives.
Now, district officials find themselves in the unusual position of having planned the steps its staff will, or won't, take to permit a child to die on school grounds. Although DNR orders are common in hospitals and nursing homes, such life-and-death drama rarely plays out in schools, where officials realize how sensitive and traumatic the situation could be for nurses, teachers and students.
Katie's brain was deprived of oxygen before birth. She can't walk, talk or do anything for herself. She is fed through a tube in her stomach and has an increased susceptibility to infection. Violent choking and coughing spasms have signaled a turn for the worse in her condition.
A Do Not Resuscitate order is a doctor's directive, issued with the consent of the family, that cardiopulmonary resuscitation will not be used if the patient suffers from heart or breathing problems. It can also prohibit using such devices as a defibrillator or an intubation tube. 
The new DNR policy puts Katie's school district at the forefront of a growing national debate about severely disabled and chronically ill children whose lives have been extended by medical advances -- and whose parents must face heart-wrenching decisions about the future.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
How much do you think residential or day placement costs? If you aren’t sure, let me clue you in - thousands, as in hundreds of thousands a year. Amelia posted a link a while ago about a child who cost the district over $400,000 EVERY year and would continue to cost that until the year in which he turns 22
I’m betting they spent several years doing that. So I don’t want to fault the parents too much. At some point “waiting for death” just becomes too draining. How many years can you wait for that death?
I’m not excusing them, just saying that I will not join in castigating them for what appears to be a hopeless situation.
I thank God I’ve never had to deal directly with such a situation.
OK, fine, then her mom should stay with her.
Chicago Public Schools is to ignore such orders and do everything possible to save a child's life, officials said.This does seem to conflict with the info in the article:
School nurses will be allowed to use suction to ease Katie's breathing and give her oxygen with a mask. The child can be positioned in a way that makes it easier to breathe. But they will not perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation or use a defibrillator. Nor will they intubate her, a procedure that puts a flexible plastic tube down the patient's throat to provide ventilation.So, I was agreeing with the info in my email from EdNews.org. Thanks for pointing out the intentions of the school.
It’s a decision that disgusts me, but parent’s rights trump all. If the parents and doctors decide on a DNR order, their will should be honored.
Kind of funny how some “conservatives” love to rail in favor of parental rights...until other parents reach a decision they don’t agree with. Then they become Hillary.
I don’t think she should be in school at all, as I said. However, the government-run school has no right to subject this terminally ill child to the trauma of emergency resuscitation measures, when the child’s doctors and parents have determined that it would be pointless and cruel, and courts routinely uphold DNR orders for patients of any age who are this sort of condition.
So? What about the costs of a lost education to the other 20+ kids in the class with this child?
A DNR is often more moral than resuscitation at any cost.
Mom stay with her the classroom?
Sure, that makes sense.
Thank you!
We forget that often we are going against the will of God by keeping people alive when they are dying.
Exactly ! Probably free babysitting for the parents.
Agree with you about the CPR - I’ve seen two CPRs with defibrillation and at least temporary revival now that looked like they turned easy deaths into harder ones, and I haven’t been doing this very long (EMS and nursing school)
The child isn’t a good candidate for CPR, as she would might have to endure it multiple times, but trach and/or ventilator, maybe?
It's the law and a civil law at that. You don't like it? Don't complain to the choir, call your congresscritter and get IDEA changed
Asking a by-stander not to act in the event the by-stander witnesses this child’s body struggle to live in the event of breathing or heart failure is cruel.
There are a lot of points about this situation that are cruel, for everyone...the child, the parents, the students, the teachers, the by-standers.
There is another side....
we live in a super shallow society,
most kids rarely see a sick person,
the eldery much less a child.
To be in a room with a child like her may have
greater benefits and losses....
I mean, they’re learning a lot about life,
and maybe their compassion muscles are getting a
workout.
Women have abortions in this country because they have a legal right to one too. We have a lot of preposterous rights in this country, and the right of those incapable of an education to an education is but one of them. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that we educate our youth so they can go on to lead productive adult lives. There is no sound reason to place this girl in school.
Besides, what you you do with her? Put her in the boiler room like schools used to do and pretend they don't exist?
She should be either in the care of the parents or a care facility of their choosing. Not in school.
How does the mother know that the daughter 'keenly enjoys' her trips to school? How does she know the child isn't beaming up at her because she loves her mother?
If the child enjoys taking a ride, take her for a ride in the car. She doesn't belong in school, especially when she is so near death.
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