Caffeinated Politics

I was having a late lunch today, and a news story on television made me feel less like eating. Seriously.

A Madison mother is demanding accountability after she says staff at Madison East High School fed her autistic son dog food instead of a school lunch.

Debra Hawkes says her 15-year-old son Jaden, a freshman who has autism and is non-verbal, was given a can of wet Nutrish dog food by a staff member a few weeks ago.

“I don’t feel like my son is safe at school. And you can’t be safe in school. Where could he be safe at?” Hawkes said.

School staff sent Hawkes a photo showing that Jaden had eaten part of the dog food.

At the outset of this column, I must say that once again, I find it a travesty that the victim is named along with the embarrassment that comes with what happened to him. But the perpetrator can hide behind the coverage extended by the school.

There are moments when a community is forced to confront not just a mistake, not just a lapse in judgment, but something so fundamentally cruel that it shakes our confidence in the institutions meant to protect our children. What happened at Madison East High School—where an autistic student was reportedly served dog food—is one of those moments.

It is difficult to overstate the shock and complete disgust this incident inspires. Schools are supposed to be sanctuaries of safety, dignity, and respect. They are entrusted with the care of every child, including those who rely on adults to understand their needs, their vulnerabilities, and their humanity. Instead, this student was subjected to an act that is not only demeaning but profoundly dehumanizing.

Why was dog food even present on school grounds? Is there a mascot I am not familiar with at East High?

But the far more disturbing question is this: How could it possibly have been served to a child, an autistic child, a non-verbal child no less?

Autistic students often depend on adults to interpret their needs, advocate for them, and ensure they are treated with respect. To betray that trust in such a grotesque way is not just a failure of procedure; it is a failure of humanity.

This wasn’t a harmless prank. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was an act that strips a child of dignity. It is the kind of thing that leaves emotional scars long after the headlines fade. It exploits vulnerability. It mocks difference. It weaponizes food—something that should be a source of comfort and care.

Parents deserve to know how this happened. Students deserve to know that their school is a place where they will be protected, not humiliated. And the child at the center of this deserves far more than apologies; they deserve accountability, transparency, and a commitment that nothing like this will ever happen again. And the community needs to hear from their school board about a very large and troubling stain on this high school.

Because if a school cannot guarantee that a child—any and every child—will be treated with basic human dignity, then something is deeply, unforgivably wrong.