During a lunch visit with her daughter, Alicia Norris thought nothing of breast feeding her son, 19 month Tahoma until she was approached by a teacher and asked to stop.
The teacher told her she could not breast-feed her baby on school property.
Later the same day, she said, school principal Wayne Whitney also approached her, even though she was not nursing at the time – and again asked her not to breast-feed at the school.
As Alicia sees it, a school of all places should be family-friendly and this one seemed anything but. “I felt degraded,” she said of the Oct. 29 incident. “I’ve been nursing three children for nine years and I’ve never felt like that before.”
Florida law states that women can breast-feed anywhere in public or private as long as they are in that place legally.
The statute states: “A mother may breast-feed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether the nipple of the mother’s breast is uncovered during or incidental to the breast-feeding.”
Principal Whitney later looked into Florida law on breast-feeding, and found he was off-base. He has since told staff members that breast-feeding is allowed at school.
“A couple teachers expressed their concerns,” said Whitney. “I asked her not to do it in front of small children.”
Alicia has been back to the school and nursed her son about four times since the incident, but has chosen to do so at a more secluded table behind the kindergarten playground.
It’s really surprising that a place that is supposed to be kid friendly is anything but. I am glad that this mom called the school board on this principal. Hopefully it will help educate others who don’t know Florida’s or their owns states laws… Related Articles:
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