Texas Elementary School Teachers Suspended After Parents Say They Gave Their Kids 'Sleepy Stickers' To Keep Them Quiet
The school and local police are now investigating after what parents say was a long period of secrecy about the matter.
ktaylorg | Getty Images Signature | Canva Pro Two teachers and two paraprofessionals at a Spring, Texas, elementary school have been suspended after reports from parents indicated that their children were given sleep-inducing supplements at school to manage their behavior.
Parents are outraged by the situation, which erupted after a 4-year-old brought the supplements home to show to her mom. Now, the school is investigating, but the lengthy silence after the situation was initially reported has parents furious, which may have opened the school to legal action.
Parents say the teachers gave their kids 'sleepy stickers' to 'keep them quiet.'
An email recently went out to parents whose kids attend Northgate Crossing Elementary School in Spring, a suburb of Houston, with a bracing announcement: Two teachers have been placed on leave while the school investigates allegations they've essentially been drugging preschool students with sleep supplements.
The supplements were allegedly distributed via stick-on patches applied to the skin. According to the patches' manufacturer, they contain ingredients like melatonin and ashwagandha in adult doses not intended for children.
The school is now investigating the matter, but parents say that action has been taken only after inexcusable delays and secrecy.
A parent who discovered a patch on her daughter said the school kept the information from other parents.
It all began when mom Lisa Luviano's 4-year-old daughter Layne brought one of the patches home from preschool. After noticing its starry-night design, Luviano became suspicious and asked her daughter what it was.
"She said, 'It is a sleeping sticker,'" she told Houston's ABC13. "I asked, 'Where did you get this?' And she said, 'My teacher gives it to me for sleeping time.'" Layne added that other kids in the class get the stickers as well.
As any parent would, Luviano immediately went to the school and demanded answers, telling the school she intended to file criminal charges if what her daughter said was true. She quickly noticed, however, that the school was not notifying other parents. After two full weeks passed, she took matters into her own hands.
The response to the group text she sent out to Layne's classmates' parents was immediate. "I showed it to my 4-year-old, and she said, 'Yes, that's the sleepy sticker,'" fellow parent Melissa Gilford said. She was even more shocked to find, after identifying the patches' manufacturer, Klova, that the stickers contain "a lot of things I've never even heard of."
In addition to melatonin and ashwagandha, the patches contain L-theanine, GABA, Cosmoperine, passion flower, lavender oil, valerian, and hops in amounts that seem to be intended for adults.
On its website, Klova states that "we guarantee your most restful sleep ever within 30 days" of using the patches. It also explicitly states that the patches "are formulated for persons 18 and older."
Parents claim they were told by the school not to talk about the incident but have refused to be silenced.
Another parent, Najala Abdullah, said she had noticed behavioral changes in her son since school started. He cried more, and wasn't eating normally, often bringing his lunch home untouched, and most alarming, he wasn't sleeping normally. Other parents said they noticed similar symptoms — some to the extent that they took their kids to the hospital.
"Every night, my son will come home. He's staying up. He's not sleeping," Abdullah told ABC13. Like Gilford, she questioned her son about the "sleepy stickers" and quickly got his confirmation. "They're giving them drugs to make them sleep to keep them quiet," Abdullah told KHOU.
But despite how shocking this situation is, in a meeting with school administrators, parents say they were explicitly told not to discuss the incident because it might impede the school district's investigation.
The parents obviously refused, and they were furious with the school district. Luviano said the school district had betrayed her and other parents' trust, and she is outraged that there has been so little follow-up. "Who is guilty for this? Who had been doing this to our kids? Because they are not telling what the side effects are in the long run," Luviano said.
The school district has issued a statement saying police are investigating the situation, which has resulted in 4 employees' dismissals.
After the parents went to local media, the school district quickly issued a statement saying that it "takes every allegation of educator misconduct seriously" and that both accused staff members "were immediately removed from the classroom and placed on administrative leave, pending an ongoing investigation by the Spring ISD Police Department."
The district also added that two paraprofessionals working in the classroom were suspended "as a precautionary measure." But parents say they are unsatisfied with the school's response, particularly the weeks-long delay in notifying them.
Carmen Roe, a legal analyst at Houston's KHOU, says that since "there seems to be no actual or potential harm to the children," it's unlikely that criminal charges will be filed. A civil lawsuit, on the other hand? Charges like "gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and arguably civil assault" are likely on the table.
What is certain is that parents are furious with the Spring Independent School District and, given the school's handling of the allegations, are wondering if the "sleepy stickers" are even the entire story.
As Luviano, the parent who started it all, put it to local media, "my trust was broken by this teacher we opened our hearts to."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.