Boy Forced to Redo School Project Featuring Photo of Stillborn Brother
Nicholas Millsaps’s second-grade class assignment was to list his favorite things. So the 7-year-old created a collage of images of his family, including his brother Noah, stillborn in March.
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But Nicholas’s teacher wasn’t touched. “[She] told him that she was not going to allow him to have that picture there, that he had to redo it,” Nicholas’s mother, Cassandra Hess, fumed to Cleveland’s Fox 8, speaking out about her outrage on Tuesday. The Parma, Ohio, family’s upset is falling on deaf ears at Old Brooklyn Constellation Elementary, though. Nicholas’s principal stands by the teacher’s decision to ban the late baby’s picture.
(Photo: Fox 8)
“Given the age of the children in the class, we do not believe the subject of the photograph was appropriate,” principal Cherie Kaiser wrote in a statement to WJW. “This decision was made in consideration of the best interests of all students in the class.”
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Yet remembering his brother is exactly what has been helping Nicholas and his family deal with the tragic loss that blindsided them nine months ago.“He was stillborn at 36 weeks,” Hess told Fox 8 of Noah, whose nursery at home is still decorated and has pictures of him displayed. “The cord was wrapped around him four times, and his heart had stopped. By the time we caught it, it was too late.”
(Photos: Fox 8)
The mom admitted, “It’s been extremely difficult,” but added that “we deal with it every day, one day at a time.” So when Nicholas’s teacher refused to allow Noah’s picture to be displayed with the rest of the family, it stung. Yet the mom — now pregnant with a baby girl due in March — isn’t just going to let it go.
(Photo: Fox 8)
With her support, Nicholas is keeping his collage exactly as is. “If they want to grade him lower, then they can grade him lower,” she declared, “because I refuse to make him feel as if he cannot be proud of his brother.”
(Top photo: Fox 8)
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