mom angry after kids badly sunburned during field trip (school ban on sunscreen)

[pnwmom]

124. To show that the school policy -- which she didn't know about and neither did I -- required

a doctor's prescription for a simple sunscreen. I've had three kids in Washington state public schools, and I've never heard of this policy. I guess we were lucky that our district was more lax about following it than the Tacoma district.

This policy requiring a doctor's note affects not just this family but millions of families across the U.S., in all the states with a similar law. For many families, the cost of visiting a doctor for a sunscreen prescription would be a burden. Millions of lower-income children don't see a doctor every year; schools don't require annual physicals. There is no good reason that a parent's note shouldn't be sufficient.

As far as this mother is concerned, she found out afterwards that she needed the note, not before. Even if she had applied sunscreen at 7 a.m., the girls would have needed to reapply before going outside. There is no such thing as truly water resistant sunscreen, although many are marketed as such.