Do you trust your school? Do you feel as though your coaches, your administrators, and your teachers are there to protect you?

Schools are supposed to be safe places, places where you can go and not have to worry about your health or safety. Unfortunately, sometimes this trust is broken, which is exactly what happened at Springbrook High School in September as several members of the varsity football team were exposed to harsh chemicals that burned their skin – in several cases, severely.

The incident happened after coaches notified building services that there was a trace of staph infection around the school that the players could have been exposed to. According to The Washington Post, the school’s building services used a strong chemical, Virex II 256, which seeped through the equipment that had been treated and caused first and second-degree burns. Multiple sources reported that the label on the product states that it is supposed to be used on nonporous surfaces, like floors and walls. Football pads are composed of absorbent material, so the use of the disinfectant on the football pads and helmets was a slip-up.

According to Washington Post writer Isabelle Khurshudyan, following the incident, the school’s principal, Sammuel A. Rivera, was apologetic, saying, “In an effort to be proactive and do the right thing by kids, we messed up; we made some serious mistakes with how the material was used.”

The victims’ parents, filled with fury and shock, wondered why and how something this severe could happen to their children in a place where they felt their kids would be safe. Their trust was broken.

“You [the school] injured my child by negligence, so I’m going to let the legal system handle it,” Chimene Jules, the mother of an injured player, told The Washington Post. “The parents’ concerns and questions need to be answered, and that would take away a lot of the frustration.”

The anger from these parents is legitimate and justified. These parents are outraged at the lack of precaution taken on the school’s part to protect their children. The staff could have done more to protect the students. Instead of asking building-services workers to disinfect the inside of the locker room and the equipment with whatever chemical they thought best, the school should have looked into what chemical was safest for this kind of work. The school should have looked into how to safely treat the issue. While they did not intend to hurt the children, the bottom line is — they did.

Any concerned parent would be angered at having to witness his/her child suffer from burns that they had no control over. Those who could not play lost an opportunity to represent their school and suffered, in several cases, debilitating injuries. Students come to school expecting to be protected by their teachers, administrators, and support staff. Hopefully, the school can restore the lost faith of its students and regain the trust of both the injured athletes and the parents.

The incident has left the public wondering whether the situation was simply a small, isolated mistake, or something that should be viewed as an act of extreme negligence. According to reports, despite the fact that the players complained about a tingling sensation during practice, practice continued for three hours. Also of note is the fact that information regarding the possible staph infection was not mentioned to the parents.

Someone must be held accountable for what happened to these young people. Using better judgment and approaching the situation with more caution could have prevented this incident and saved these young men from suffering such painful and dangerous injuries.