School Staffers Help Boy Bullied With His Hygiene

LA CROSSE, Wis. (CBS Local) -- A 14-year-old Wisconsin boy was being bullied about his hygiene and kept failing to show up for class. That's when staffers at his middle school decided it was time to step in.

The staffers met with the teen's mom Friday to discuss his more than 20 absences this semester, the La Crosse Tribune reports.

The group concluded that the "smell was not his, but his clothes." This is according to a report file by a La Crosse officer who attended the session.

The boy's mother said she was short on money and hadn't been able to do laundry. So the staffers arranged for her to be picked up and taken to a laundromat to wash clothes. They also brought her to the school's food pantry to get her family something to eat and to get clothing from its clothes closet.

"We'll do whatever we can do to help kids be successful," the school's nurse said in an interview. "As far as school nurses, counselors and truancy, if there are medical reasons or anything else, we do try."