Health

Actions

Child sent home 24 different times for bad smell

Posted at 12:56 AM, Apr 02, 2013
and last updated 2013-04-02 00:56:42-04

A Tennessee child repeatedly sent home from school for smelling bad.

But her mother says the eight-year-old is clean.

"They just say it's a foul odor,” Krystal Hensley, her mother, said. "She's been to the doctor and it's not a medical problem."

"They send her home at least once a month, I mean, you go to school to learn, not to be sent home."

Her mother says she takes a bath every day, but when the girl is asked the last time she took a bath is, she says she doesn’t remember.

According to several documents provided to us by Hensley, the school system says this student's smell is disruptive.
So bad in fact, that other students and teachers complain about it, saying they cannot focus on school.

The school has warned since October, if corrective measures are not taken, the suspensions will continue and they have--the girl has spent at least 24 school days at home.

The director of schools wouldn't talk specifically about this student. But Ron Dykes said that generally when a child is sent home, it's a rare and extreme situation.

There are times when the Department of Children Services is called, but Dykes says usually after talking with the parents, the school tries to resolve it by searching for money or an agency to help.

A spokesperson for the DCS would only say, "we do not currently have an open case."

Hensley says the case was closed. And yet the problem continues.

“She makes good grades, I mean, that's not the problem, problem is you can't learn if you're not at school.”