When parents learned that a school photographer had reportedly offered to have kids with wheelchairs and other special needs removed from class pictures, they were appalled.
Students at the small, rural Aboyne Primary School, located about west of Aberdeen, Scotland, were beaming for their school pictures, but parents reportedly had the choice to buy the pictures without the three children who had special needs or impairments.
Mum-of-two Natalie Pinnell was shocked to learn parents were allegedly given an option to remove her nine-year-old daughter Erin from the class photo. She said the option reportedly offered by Cornwall-based Tempest Photography had “devastated” her family.
The mum told the Press and Journal it felt like having her child “erased from history”. She told the paper: “I am absolutely heartbroken. Furious.”
She added: “A lot of the other parents have decided not to purchase their school photos in support. That means a lot. To give people the option to erase my daughter from history for the sake of optics is frankly inhumane. One of the cruellest things that I’ve ever experienced. Me and the other parents just feel devastated beyond belief.”
Additionally, according to Ms Pinnell, the school was unaware of the plan to shoot two sets of images and launched an investigation as soon as parents raised the matter.
“You can’t erase them because they’re inconvenient,” the businesswoman told MailOnline. “It’s devastating to have your child be erased from a photo or give parents a choice whether she should or should not be included.
“She is the most beautiful human being. Who could do this? I’m grateful that she’s not aware of it because the damage that would do to her self-esteem would be devastating. But I’m having to tell my other daughter about what’s happening to her sister. I’m not sure I’m going to sleep tonight.”
According to Ms Pinnell, she emailed two photo links—one including Erin and the other without—to the school. It was also alleged that a wheelchair-using girl from a different class was taken out of one of the photo options.
The mother declared that she would never do business with the company again and that it interfered with the elementary school’s activities. Ms Pinnell asked for schools to sever their connections with Tempest Photography and termed the situation “painful”.
She also mentioned that the school’s parents had given her their support and that there is now just one version of the class portrait for sale. According to Ms Pinnell, who spoke with MailOnline, she is still concerned that parents who ordered the class portrait might still receive one without her daughter.
Tempest will rightfully suffer a great deal of financial loss as well as, maybe more significantly, damage to their image. Children with disabilities already face enough difficulties; their condition does not warrant their erasure.
This option will appeal to some parents because of the shallow, attention-seeking, me-centred world we currently live in. They will be concerned about their child’s social media presence and how businesses and people will search and profile it in the future, thinking that people will assume their child attended a special school or something, which could hurt their chances in the future. Indeed, some parents are really that shallow!
Children with disabilities shouldn’t be kept out of regular school activities or school photos. This isn’t the Gestapo woke brigade, and we don’t live in 1930s Germany, and this is a horrific attitude towards disability.
Discrimination against persons with disabilities is illegal. In addition, it is illegal to discriminate against handicapped individuals indirectly, which disadvantages them.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 