Mother, School District At Odds Over Breast-Feeding In Elementary Hallway
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP/CBS4) -- A Grand Junction woman is at odds with school officials after an administrator asked her to cover up while she was nursing her child at an elementary school.
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported Friday that Kelly Johnson was breast-feeding her 18-month-old daughter in a hallway at Thunder Mountain Elementary last week while waiting for one of her other children.
She says a staff member asked her to cover herself because students would be finishing classes soon.
"I was very upset by it," Johnson told the Sentinel. "It felt very shameful, like I was doing something wrong and it shocked me. I've breast-fed all over my child's private school and all over Grand Junction. I know the laws."
Colorado law allows women to breast-feed in public.
School District 51 spokesman Charles Delano said Johnson wasn't asked to stop breast-feeding, only to cover up. He says the administrator offered to get her a covering.
Johnson said her children won't breast-feed if they are covered.
Delano said the school district "fully supports the rights of mothers to nurse their children."
Johnson added, "This really needs to be a teachable moment for everyone, that whether you support breast-feeding or not, this is the law."
According to Johnson, school officials later told her she could breast-feed in the school nurse's office.
"Their idea of fixing it was sticking me in a room where sick kids have been all day," she said.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
