https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-teachers-yanked-texas-classroom-160046076.html

It seems based on the evidence of the press reports and interviewed witnesses that teachers at an elementary school put “sleeping” patches on the children in the classroom regularly in large numbers. These are small children as young as four years old. I am outraged. You just don’t give other people’s children drugs. That they didn’t actually kill anybody is just dumb luck.

Here’s a quote from the article:

Najla Abdullah asked her four-year-old son if he too had received a sticker. “He said, ‘Yes, mommy. I get a special sticker,’” Abdullah told ABC. “I said, ‘What does it look like?’ He said, ‘I get it right here on my hand, and it has the storms with the clouds and the star and the moon.’”

My son is entering his thirties so I didn’t even know these things existed (sleeping stickers). So, I went over and opened my Amazon account and there they were in large numbers and variety of colors and various capabilities. I’m sure many parents whose children have sleep problems find them to be of some benefit.

However, drugging entire classrooms of tiny tots to make your job easier is wrong! (to put it mildly) Since, I assume there will be firings and criminal charges, hopefully the idea of drugging small children will not catch on as a teaching aid.

As an expert on business ethics, my analytic abilities are wasted here. What analysis can you do? Is there a moral argument about giving other people’s children drugs? I think not. There is no way the teachers or teacher’s aides had any idea of what medications the children were already taking or the existence of an medical conditions the children might have had so administering any drug on a large scale is highly dangerous. These acts endangered children. End of moral analysis.

If I may quote from a legendary source of moral support: In the New Testament, Jesus Christ issues a stern warning against harming children. In Matthew 18:6, Jesus says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

This is a catastrophic failure of business ethics. The school is hunkered down. There is no listing of classes involved, number of students or if this was the only set of violations. We can expect this story to develop.

If I were advising the school. I would recommend an outside investigator be hired and as early as possible personnel decisions. They need to share as much information as is possible under the circumstances and new rules specifically banning these actions put in place.

James Pilant