Girl barred from school over Ebola fears is back in class, and lawsuit is settled
A Connecticut girl who was barred from school for 21 days after returning from a trip to Nigeria has returned to the classroom.
The 7-year-old girl, a third-grader at Meadowside Elementary School in Milford, Connecticut, was allowed back in school Friday after the settlement of a lawsuit against the school district by her father, the Hartford Courant reports.
The girl had been told to stay home for 21 days, the incubation period for Ebola, after she and her father returned home from a 10-day trip to Nigeria on Oct. 13.
Stephen Opayemi, the girl’s father, had filed a lawsuit against the school district last week under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. The suit alleged that Opayemi had been asked to keep his daughter home because of irrational fears about Ebola.
Opayemi’s lawyer, Gary Phelan, told the Courant at the time that the lawsuit was filed to get Opayemi’s daughter back in school and to deter other towns from taking similar action.
