Student Dies During Field Trip, School Calls To Complain About His Attendance Record

Jonas Pierre of Brooklyn, New York was shocked to receive several phone calls from his sons school about a terrible attendance record. Pierre was Shocked because 16-year-old Jean Fritz Pierre had drowned last June on a school field trip to Bear Mountain State Park. A school trip that was supposed to be monitored closely by Jean’s teachers.

Jean and a friend went swimming in Hessian Lake, also known as Bloody Lake. He never returned from the trip and his death, it was discovered, occurred while he was unsupervised.

Speaking to the New York Daily News Jonas Pierre explains:

“I think, why are you calling, why are you telling me this. Don’t you know my son is dead?”

According to Gawker NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to blame the calls on a system that must deal with a large number of students. He proclaimed: “We have a million, one hundred thousands kids, or something like that. I’m sure there are errors in the bureaucracy.”

Errors in reporting a dead child would be one thing, but this particular student died while under the supervision of teachers, and therefore his case should have been handled with care. The 39-year-old retail worker even filed notice of a claim for two $5 million lawsuits against the city. Pierre is seeking damages form the city and Department of Education for “negligence, including breach of their duty to adequately supervise students in their care” and “permitting a ninth-grade student to swim, unsupervised, in a lake known to have a dangerous undertow.”

A report that was recently released cleared the Department of Education in any wrongdoing.

Speaking to DNAinfo New York following the report Pierre said, “How is it not their fault? Where’s the teacher that was supposed to take care of the kids? The teacher didn’t take responsibility — he went to play like a teenager, that’s why my kid came back dead.”

In the meantime the calls about his dead sons attendance record have stopped… for now.