“Why Did We Ever Send Sick Kids to School?”

[Anonymous]

I have 5 sick days.

“ Like, they’re asked to complete these worksheets to catch up, but they weren’t in class for instruction. I remember one time when my kid was in 8th and out for a few days not too long before an exam. He came home with all of these math worksheets and was told he could have until the exam to turn in the worksheets. He didn’t know how to do the math. The teacher essentially said “well, you missed the instruction, so go ask your parents to catch you up.”

Yep. There is nothing on paper that actually EXPLAINS what the teacher is doing like you know a textbook!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid’s teachers have regularly had policies which make it very difficult to catch up. They often seem to suggest that the kid needs to catch up by working at home, while sick. But if the kid is too sick to go to school, usually he’s too sick to do schoolwork. It just feels like they want to have it both ways.

Sometimes it feels like teachers just want the kids to be sick less.

This discussion is illuminating. Of course the angry teacher poster doesn't speak for all teachers, but it helps me to understand that even before the pandemic, some teachers favored policies to intended protect teachers from being exposed to illness, regardless of severity or actual risk, to the detriment of childrens' education. No teacher should ever be forced to catch a cold, so all sniffling children should be excluded from school. And each of them needs to individually approach each of their teachers to make arrangement to make up the work, subject to teacher discretion to allow them to make up the work. Oh, and by the way, if you are sick, stay home as instructed, and ask to make up the work, you have to do it either before or after school, so you'll need your own transportation for that too.

Teachers in my district get only 10 paid sick days which we have to split between personal illness and illness in family. When my younger DD was really little, anything I caught at work, she would catch. And then end up at the Children’s ER for asthma. I was a divorced mom so I could easily use up my 10 days of sick leave before Christmas just from parents sending sick kids 2-3 times. Any days missed after that, my pay was docked. I was losing money so that other parents didn’t lose a day of work. At the time, I worked at a W feeder. The parents were much better off than me, but I was indirectly subsidizing their careers.

Honestly 10 days is pretty standard around here for people who are on salary. Some people do get 15. And I haven’t really heard of a separate leave for sick children. It doesn’t sound like you had it worse than most salaried workers, honestly.

I'm a real estate exec and I do not get sick leave. I get PTO, paid time off. For the first ten years of my career, I got 10 PTO days per year. If I took more, I would be fired. This is the real world. Stop naval gazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid was a severe asthmatic as a child. I swear if someone SAID "sick" he would be wheezing. (Obviously not, but...) There were a few times a teacher would mention that so & so was there with a pretty bad cold, just an FYI. Sure enough a couple of days later ds would start with breathing trouble and go from there.

Having said that, everyone can't keep their kid home because of a runny nose. Runny nose with no other symptoms doesn't equal sick. What about kids with allergies? Some would almost never go to school.


Runny nose, red eyes, sore throat & cough? Please keep your kid home. At that point they probably feel like crap too.

I think school illness policies will be enforced a lot more.

Runny nose, red eyes, sore throat and cough are how allergies present for me.

Pp you quoted and yes, same for me. I didn't proof read -- fever, even low grade, should have been there too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I’m not letting my kids miss 7 days of school for a low grade temperature.

If they continue to offer online classes I will keep them home.

If your kid has a fever for 7 days, you need to keep them home and take them to the doctor. WTF is wrong with you?

You can't take a kid to the doctor with a low grade fever, they basically say, call us back if it goes above 101. But after a few days, you push them to see you then they say, rest, advil and fluids.

Do you even have children! WTF is wrong with you?

If your kid has a fever for more than three days you need to take them to the doctor, not send them back to school. Duh.

[Anonymous]

There is no childcare for sick children. You can't send them to daycare or school. Period. As a parent, it is YOUR job to care for your child when they are sick. Exclusively. Period. It is the fault of YOUR boss and YOUR job if you can't take a sick day to care for your child. It is ridiculous to suggest we should have "school" (babysitting) available for 365 days a year to accommodate your employer. Do you know how much that would cost taxpayers? We are not a babysitting service, and we are certainly not an infirmary. As a teacher, I'm absolutely not responsible for advocating for your sick leave, nor would you advocate for teachers to get additional sick leave to account for all the illnesses we contract being exposed to your sick children. I already see threads here complaining every time their child's teacher calls out, as if it is any of their business why. In the past, I have reached out to let parents know I would be out on x day (as a courtesy, not a requirement), and had them ask me the reason for the absence. Totally inappropriate.

Is anyone else floored by the tone of this post? I mean, the complete contempt for parents and kids is just stunning. The complete lack of empathy for parents who aren't privileged enough to have sick leave and backup childcare is just stunning. And I tend to agree that sick kids should be kept home whenever possible.

This attitude, right here, is why parents are losing patience with teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There is no childcare for sick children. You can't send them to daycare or school. Period. As a parent, it is YOUR job to care for your child when they are sick. Exclusively. Period. It is the fault of YOUR boss and YOUR job if you can't take a sick day to care for your child. It is ridiculous to suggest we should have "school" (babysitting) available for 365 days a year to accommodate your employer. Do you know how much that would cost taxpayers? We are not a babysitting service, and we are certainly not an infirmary. As a teacher, I'm absolutely not responsible for advocating for your sick leave, nor would you advocate for teachers to get additional sick leave to account for all the illnesses we contract being exposed to your sick children. I already see threads here complaining every time their child's teacher calls out, as if it is any of their business why. In the past, I have reached out to let parents know I would be out on x day (as a courtesy, not a requirement), and had them ask me the reason for the absence. Totally inappropriate.

Is anyone else floored by the tone of this post? I mean, the complete contempt for parents and kids is just stunning. The complete lack of empathy for parents who aren't privileged enough to have sick leave and backup childcare is just stunning. And I tend to agree that sick kids should be kept home whenever possible.

This attitude, right here, is why parents are losing patience with teachers.

I probably would have been shocked by it a year ago but now it doesn’t even register with me. They hate us and hate our kids. Sad but true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There is no childcare for sick children. You can't send them to daycare or school. Period. As a parent, it is YOUR job to care for your child when they are sick. Exclusively. Period. It is the fault of YOUR boss and YOUR job if you can't take a sick day to care for your child. It is ridiculous to suggest we should have "school" (babysitting) available for 365 days a year to accommodate your employer. Do you know how much that would cost taxpayers? We are not a babysitting service, and we are certainly not an infirmary. As a teacher, I'm absolutely not responsible for advocating for your sick leave, nor would you advocate for teachers to get additional sick leave to account for all the illnesses we contract being exposed to your sick children. I already see threads here complaining every time their child's teacher calls out, as if it is any of their business why. In the past, I have reached out to let parents know I would be out on x day (as a courtesy, not a requirement), and had them ask me the reason for the absence. Totally inappropriate.

Is anyone else floored by the tone of this post? I mean, the complete contempt for parents and kids is just stunning. The complete lack of empathy for parents who aren't privileged enough to have sick leave and backup childcare is just stunning. And I tend to agree that sick kids should be kept home whenever possible.

This attitude, right here, is why parents are losing patience with teachers.

I probably would have been shocked by it a year ago but now it doesn’t even register with me. They hate us and hate our kids. Sad but true.

What kind of attitude do you expect from a group of people you spend all day vilifying? That we would be thrilled to contract your germs and agree that whatever you’re doing all day is much more important than parenting? If I hear one more time that returning to school is “a risk we must take” I will scream. You don’t mean we-you mean teachers and school staff, and the “risk” is death.

In this thread you have parents arguing that because it’s stressful for their child to have to make up work that they’ll come to school ill. As an adult with a job, I’m also expected to make up anything I miss when I’m out, even if it means working more than usual for a few days. Why should your 16 year old be any different? In college, your high schooler will also have to independently complete make up work. That’s life.

There are also parents here saying that they’re not responsible for “protecting teachers from every germ”. If anyone had actually read the article that this thread is supposed to discuss, it was written by a parent whose asthmatic child is often hospitalized after exposure to “minor” illnesses at school. When I was a student in elementary school, the principal had to send out a pleading letter to families to stop sending kids who were queasy or had diarrhea to school because there was a nasty stomach bug going around and one of the first graders was undergoing treatment for leukemia. It could have killed the child. It doesn’t just impact teachers. We know you hate teachers and they should be exposed to all your children’s germs to punish them for being so selfish and terrible, but unfortunately you can’t control who gets sick when you send Johnny to school with the flu (I mean, “a cough and a low grade fever” per the parent I was responding to).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There is no childcare for sick children. You can't send them to daycare or school. Period. As a parent, it is YOUR job to care for your child when they are sick. Exclusively. Period. It is the fault of YOUR boss and YOUR job if you can't take a sick day to care for your child. It is ridiculous to suggest we should have "school" (babysitting) available for 365 days a year to accommodate your employer. Do you know how much that would cost taxpayers? We are not a babysitting service, and we are certainly not an infirmary. As a teacher, I'm absolutely not responsible for advocating for your sick leave, nor would you advocate for teachers to get additional sick leave to account for all the illnesses we contract being exposed to your sick children. I already see threads here complaining every time their child's teacher calls out, as if it is any of their business why. In the past, I have reached out to let parents know I would be out on x day (as a courtesy, not a requirement), and had them ask me the reason for the absence. Totally inappropriate.

Is anyone else floored by the tone of this post? I mean, the complete contempt for parents and kids is just stunning. The complete lack of empathy for parents who aren't privileged enough to have sick leave and backup childcare is just stunning. And I tend to agree that sick kids should be kept home whenever possible.

This attitude, right here, is why parents are losing patience with teachers.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two earner households. Lack of workplace flexibility.

Plus, not to be heartless towards your child, but typical colds don’t typically affect other people in significant ways. I’m not staying home for a cold and neither will my kids. Fever - yes. Runny nose - no.

NP here. You are being heartless. Stop sending you kids to school with a cold! Stop going to work with a cold!! I’m glad they don’t bother you, but I also get knocked out by colds, and people like you drive me nuts.

If you’re a waitress or something where you get no paid sick days and need to pay rent, okay. But if you get paid sick days, aren’t using all of them, and are coming in with a cold STOP. You are the problem this post is about!!

I’m an attorney. I literally do not have enough sick days to cover my colds plus 1/2 of kids’ colds. So kids go to school with colds and I go to work with a cold. And that’s just the way it’s gonna be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two earner households. Lack of workplace flexibility.

Plus, not to be heartless towards your child, but typical colds don’t typically affect other people in significant ways. I’m not staying home for a cold and neither will my kids. Fever - yes. Runny nose - no.

NP here. You are being heartless. Stop sending you kids to school with a cold! Stop going to work with a cold!! I’m glad they don’t bother you, but I also get knocked out by colds, and people like you drive me nuts.

If you’re a waitress or something where you get no paid sick days and need to pay rent, okay. But if you get paid sick days, aren’t using all of them, and are coming in with a cold STOP. You are the problem this post is about!!

I’m an attorney. I literally do not have enough sick days to cover my colds plus 1/2 of kids’ colds. So kids go to school with colds and I go to work with a cold. And that’s just the way it’s gonna be.

You’re an attorney. Don’t you make enough money to take a couple of days of LWOP or , God forbid, vacation days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There is no childcare for sick children. You can't send them to daycare or school. Period. As a parent, it is YOUR job to care for your child when they are sick. Exclusively. Period. It is the fault of YOUR boss and YOUR job if you can't take a sick day to care for your child. It is ridiculous to suggest we should have "school" (babysitting) available for 365 days a year to accommodate your employer. Do you know how much that would cost taxpayers? We are not a babysitting service, and we are certainly not an infirmary. As a teacher, I'm absolutely not responsible for advocating for your sick leave, nor would you advocate for teachers to get additional sick leave to account for all the illnesses we contract being exposed to your sick children. I already see threads here complaining every time their child's teacher calls out, as if it is any of their business why. In the past, I have reached out to let parents know I would be out on x day (as a courtesy, not a requirement), and had them ask me the reason for the absence. Totally inappropriate.

Is anyone else floored by the tone of this post? I mean, the complete contempt for parents and kids is just stunning. The complete lack of empathy for parents who aren't privileged enough to have sick leave and backup childcare is just stunning. And I tend to agree that sick kids should be kept home whenever possible.

This attitude, right here, is why parents are losing patience with teachers.

I probably would have been shocked by it a year ago but now it doesn’t even register with me. They hate us and hate our kids. Sad but true.

What kind of attitude do you expect from a group of people you spend all day vilifying? That we would be thrilled to contract your germs and agree that whatever you’re doing all day is much more important than parenting? If I hear one more time that returning to school is “a risk we must take” I will scream. You don’t mean we-you mean teachers and school staff, and the “risk” is death.

In this thread you have parents arguing that because it’s stressful for their child to have to make up work that they’ll come to school ill. As an adult with a job, I’m also expected to make up anything I miss when I’m out, even if it means working more than usual for a few days. Why should your 16 year old be any different? In college, your high schooler will also have to independently complete make up work. That’s life.

There are also parents here saying that they’re not responsible for “protecting teachers from every germ”. If anyone had actually read the article that this thread is supposed to discuss, it was written by a parent whose asthmatic child is often hospitalized after exposure to “minor” illnesses at school. When I was a student in elementary school, the principal had to send out a pleading letter to families to stop sending kids who were queasy or had diarrhea to school because there was a nasty stomach bug going around and one of the first graders was undergoing treatment for leukemia. It could have killed the child. It doesn’t just impact teachers. We know you hate teachers and they should be exposed to all your children’s germs to punish them for being so selfish and terrible, but unfortunately you can’t control who gets sick when you send Johnny to school with the flu (I mean, “a cough and a low grade fever” per the parent I was responding to).

I don't actually spend all day vilifying teachers. I have been very supportive of them throughout this whole process, and in general. And I keep my kid home when she's sick.

But if the attitude is "making up missing work is solely your child's problem and I have no obligation to help them in any way," don't be surprised, or complain, if students show up sick. If the attitude is, "I don't care about your ability to maintain employment or pay your bills," then don't be surprised, or complain, if parents send their sick kids to school because they don't have enough, or any, paid sick leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There is no childcare for sick children. You can't send them to daycare or school. Period. As a parent, it is YOUR job to care for your child when they are sick. Exclusively. Period. It is the fault of YOUR boss and YOUR job if you can't take a sick day to care for your child. It is ridiculous to suggest we should have "school" (babysitting) available for 365 days a year to accommodate your employer. Do you know how much that would cost taxpayers? We are not a babysitting service, and we are certainly not an infirmary. As a teacher, I'm absolutely not responsible for advocating for your sick leave, nor would you advocate for teachers to get additional sick leave to account for all the illnesses we contract being exposed to your sick children. I already see threads here complaining every time their child's teacher calls out, as if it is any of their business why. In the past, I have reached out to let parents know I would be out on x day (as a courtesy, not a requirement), and had them ask me the reason for the absence. Totally inappropriate.

Is anyone else floored by the tone of this post? I mean, the complete contempt for parents and kids is just stunning. The complete lack of empathy for parents who aren't privileged enough to have sick leave and backup childcare is just stunning. And I tend to agree that sick kids should be kept home whenever possible.

This attitude, right here, is why parents are losing patience with teachers.

I probably would have been shocked by it a year ago but now it doesn’t even register with me. They hate us and hate our kids. Sad but true.

What kind of attitude do you expect from a group of people you spend all day vilifying? That we would be thrilled to contract your germs and agree that whatever you’re doing all day is much more important than parenting? If I hear one more time that returning to school is “a risk we must take” I will scream. You don’t mean we-you mean teachers and school staff, and the “risk” is death.

In this thread you have parents arguing that because it’s stressful for their child to have to make up work that they’ll come to school ill. As an adult with a job, I’m also expected to make up anything I miss when I’m out, even if it means working more than usual for a few days. Why should your 16 year old be any different? In college, your high schooler will also have to independently complete make up work. That’s life.

There are also parents here saying that they’re not responsible for “protecting teachers from every germ”. If anyone had actually read the article that this thread is supposed to discuss, it was written by a parent whose asthmatic child is often hospitalized after exposure to “minor” illnesses at school. When I was a student in elementary school, the principal had to send out a pleading letter to families to stop sending kids who were queasy or had diarrhea to school because there was a nasty stomach bug going around and one of the first graders was undergoing treatment for leukemia. It could have killed the child. It doesn’t just impact teachers. We know you hate teachers and they should be exposed to all your children’s germs to punish them for being so selfish and terrible, but unfortunately you can’t control who gets sick when you send Johnny to school with the flu (I mean, “a cough and a low grade fever” per the parent I was responding to).

If you are a teacher, you aren't doing your profession any favors as you continually reinforce the fact that you are hostile, dismissive, and not particularly bright. Otherwise, you would understand that public health guidance changes depending on the prevailing public health concerns. What was once not a reason to exclude a child from school, i.e. a cold, requires school exclusion in the age of COVID. Similarly, in my school, diarrhea was not a reason to exclude children from school as long as there is no blood or mucus in the stools and it could be contained in the toilet (and the child could participate in activities). However, in the situation you describe, when there is an outbreak of a viral illness or a child who is immunocompromised, that advice might change. It doesn't make parents who heeded the guidelines monsters or villains.

Personally, I think the part of the article that mentions the problem of kids coming to school with "snot" is ridiculous. That's a cold, and keeping kids out of school for every would result in weeks, of not months, of missed school. I know it's not important to you, but we, as a society, need to make compromises for the sake of education.

As to making up work, the point isn't that kids have to make up the work. The point is that teachers don't give them the opportunity to make it up. So if you want to encourage sick teenagers to stay home, have a chat with your colleagues and look in the mirror and ask why they aren't more helpful to teenagers who have been out sick. That's completely on the teaching profession, not parents.

[Anonymous]

I follow the school rules on when to send kids. If they change the rules, I’ll follow whatever the new rules are. I think schools should do a better job of enforcing too. We have historically had some kids sent home with something they need to stay home 24 hours for be allowed back in the next day & students out most of day come in at end of day for party etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two earner households. Lack of workplace flexibility.

Plus, not to be heartless towards your child, but typical colds don’t typically affect other people in significant ways. I’m not staying home for a cold and neither will my kids. Fever - yes. Runny nose - no.

NP here. You are being heartless. Stop sending you kids to school with a cold! Stop going to work with a cold!! I’m glad they don’t bother you, but I also get knocked out by colds, and people like you drive me nuts.

If you’re a waitress or something where you get no paid sick days and need to pay rent, okay. But if you get paid sick days, aren’t using all of them, and are coming in with a cold STOP. You are the problem this post is about!!

I’m an attorney. I literally do not have enough sick days to cover my colds plus 1/2 of kids’ colds. So kids go to school with colds and I go to work with a cold. And that’s just the way it’s gonna be.

You’re an attorney. Don’t you make enough money to take a couple of days of LWOP or , God forbid, vacation days?

DP. I think that's one reason we have trouble having a civil conversation. Because the answer is, at times, NO. There is no time, sometimes there is not a single hour available to take off. Nothing will stop a schedule trial. No postponements are given for kids with colds. And if I'm a public defender, I probably make the same as or less than a teacher does and I schedule my leave around the many school holidays and snow days that teachers get paid for.

[Anonymous]

Not only kids are sick at school. Teachers come to school with strep and other contagious diseases.