We're happy to present this article from our partner site Yahoo! Shine:
It was raining when her children left for school on Tuesday, so Jesse Michener did not slather them in sunscreen, even though she knew they'd be outdoors for field day later that afternoon. But the sun came out around noon, and when the kids came home, two of them were so severely sunburned that they had to go to the hospital.
"We've never done a field day at the school before," Michener told Yahoo! Shine in an interview on Thursday. "They were outside for over five hours."
A freelance photographer, she posted pictures and described her daughter's sunburns on her blog. "Two of my three children experienced significant sunburns. Like, hurts-to-look-at burns," Michener wrote. "Violet is starting to blister on her face." Both Violet, 11, and her sister, Zoe, 9, "have headaches, chills, and pain" and had to stay home from school the next day. (Her youngest daughter, 7-year-old Eleanor, was also sunburned but not badly.) The girls did not stay overnight at the hospital, and Michener said they are being treated at home with cool baths and over-the-counter pain medications.
Related: CDC says half of young adults get sunburned
To make matters worse, Zoe has a form of Albinism — and teachers and staff at Point Defiance Elementary School in Tacoma, WA, were aware of her extreme sensitivity to the sun. She even has a written agreement — a 504 plan — with the school because of it. And yet teachers refused to send the girls indoors or allow them to apply sunscreen themselves, according to her mom.
"My children indicated that several adults commented on their burns at school, including staff and other parents," Michener wrote on her blog. "One of my children remarked that their teacher used sunscreen in her presence and that it was 'just for her.' So is this an issue of passive, inactive supervision? Where is the collective awareness for student safety?" Keep reading for the rest of the story.