Reopening schools and excluding sick kids (questions)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Covid weren't an issue, this still reads like a kid who should be kept home from the time symptoms started. A child with a persistent cough, fatigue, sore throat, and stomach issues should be home resting, not sitting in a classroom with 25 other students and a teacher. In the past, schools probably wouldn't have made the kid stay home unless he had a fever, but going forward they definitely should when in-person classes resume. My guess is this will cut down on transmission of flu, strep, stomach viruses, etc. Yes, it's inconvenient for a lot of families, but it's going to be necessary from a public health standpoint.

Umm. A cough isn't "persistent" the day it starts. The sore throat didn't exist until today. Just curious, do you want schools to reopen full time F2F?

[Anonymous]

Sorry for all the questions, but with teachers responding, I wanted to ask how you think kids in this situation (especially in high school) make up their work?
How, if classes were in person, would you handle the revolving door of kids being excluded from the classroom? Would they have to get assessments online? If a kid gets sick the day of a quiz and then can't return for two more weeks, then can the other students get the quiz back?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Covid weren't an issue, this still reads like a kid who should be kept home from the time symptoms started. A child with a persistent cough, fatigue, sore throat, and stomach issues should be home resting, not sitting in a classroom with 25 other students and a teacher. In the past, schools probably wouldn't have made the kid stay home unless he had a fever, but going forward they definitely should when in-person classes resume. My guess is this will cut down on transmission of flu, strep, stomach viruses, etc. Yes, it's inconvenient for a lot of families, but it's going to be necessary from a public health standpoint.

Umm. A cough isn't "persistent" the day it starts. The sore throat didn't exist until today. Just curious, do you want schools to reopen full time F2F?

Dp. A random one off cough is nothing to be concerned about. A persistent (repeatedly over a period of time -even a couple of hours) is something to be concerned about. I want schools to resume, but I'd also love it if my kid could get through the year without getting sick from kids who come to school ill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Covid weren't an issue, this still reads like a kid who should be kept home from the time symptoms started. A child with a persistent cough, fatigue, sore throat, and stomach issues should be home resting, not sitting in a classroom with 25 other students and a teacher. In the past, schools probably wouldn't have made the kid stay home unless he had a fever, but going forward they definitely should when in-person classes resume. My guess is this will cut down on transmission of flu, strep, stomach viruses, etc. Yes, it's inconvenient for a lot of families, but it's going to be necessary from a public health standpoint.

Umm. A cough isn't "persistent" the day it starts. The sore throat didn't exist until today. Just curious, do you want schools to reopen full time F2F?

PP here. Maybe I misread the OP. From what I understood, the child's cough and headache started on the first day and continued, and other symptoms followed.

I would like to see schools open F2F, but with a lot of mitigation in place (masks for everyone, PPE for staff, extra cleaning, that kind of stuff). I believe schools have been too lax in the past about sending sick kids home or making them stay home after they've been sick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Covid weren't an issue, this still reads like a kid who should be kept home from the time symptoms started. A child with a persistent cough, fatigue, sore throat, and stomach issues should be home resting, not sitting in a classroom with 25 other students and a teacher. In the past, schools probably wouldn't have made the kid stay home unless he had a fever, but going forward they definitely should when in-person classes resume. My guess is this will cut down on transmission of flu, strep, stomach viruses, etc. Yes, it's inconvenient for a lot of families, but it's going to be necessary from a public health standpoint.

Umm. A cough isn't "persistent" the day it starts. The sore throat didn't exist until today. Just curious, do you want schools to reopen full time F2F?

PP here. Maybe I misread the OP. From what I understood, the child's cough and headache started on the first day and continued, and other symptoms followed.

I would like to see schools open F2F, but with a lot of mitigation in place (masks for everyone, PPE for staff, extra cleaning, that kind of stuff). I believe schools have been too lax in the past about sending sick kids home or making them stay home after they've been sick.

That's reasonable. I asked because in the God awful return to school thread, people are demanding full-time return with no or few mitigation efforts because school is a public health need and COVID isn't that bad. I was going to say you can't have it both ways. If COVID isn't that bad, then you can't take such drastic measure to exclude kids from coming to school that you deprive them of a right to public education. That's why kids are allowed to come to school with runny noses, colds, etc. If COVID justifies such measures, it raises the question of whether schools can open at all. It is hard to see how you can have it both ways. One of my kids will never be in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I wasn't trying to whine about having to do the telehealth appointment or take my son to get tested. I was trying to use a real life situation to show how that this isn't easy. Excluding kids from school raises equity issues. Kids from lower income families are less likely to have parents available to take them for testing and therefore, to get them back into school if the test is positive. Students with asthma may wind up being excluded more than non-asthmatic students, which create an equity issue. These issues have to be considered. Lower income families have less sick leave and are therefore more likely to send their kids to school if they are sick.

I think the rules would have to be written so that no one with any of the symptoms, including just a cough, is permitted to come to school. It has to be very clear. If you have ANY of these symptoms, stay home.

All of this makes me so sad.

I replied above with the kid who had to stay home before schools closed for COVID. My kid's school just announced the changes one day (cannot attend with any symptoms: cough, sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes) and that was that. The school is slightly over half low-income and previously there had been encouragement to send kids who were slighly sick as long as they didn't have fever or GI symptoms.

[Anonymous]

OP, in our current situation I’d definitely say stay home. Pre-Covid-19, I think a good deciding question is does your child feel well enough to participate? Because there’s a big difference in a kid with allergies who’s really feeling crummy and a kid who has an itchy nose but otherwise feels fine.

I am a para educator and I’ve worked in schools where parents sent in very sick children and then also didn’t want to pick them up. I have two kids myself so I can sympathize with how inconvenient it is to have to change plans for the day at the last minute, but sick kids belong at home. I worry about our prospects for the fall when I think about all the parents who argued with the nurse over picking up children who had fevers, vomited, etc. We really need a big shift in attitudes from families AND employers if we’re going to get back to school in person.

[Anonymous]

I'm just envisioning my "spirited" kid faking a cough every time he doesn't feel like being in school.

[Anonymous]

I'm the parent of an asthmatic/allergic kid, and I'm also a teacher.

I think, unfortunately, kids and teachers will need to stay home if they have respiratory symptoms or a fever, even if we know that the symptoms aren't covid. For one thing, I think that the rule in the classroom is going to be that if you have symptoms you leave. Anything else, is just going to be confusing and open up areas for parents to lie and say they had their kid tested, etc . . .

But I also think that a kid who is asymptomatic for covid, but sneezing due to pollen, for example, is probably going to spread way more virus than a kid who is asymptomatic for anything. If you get tested at the start of the sneezing, and you're negative, it doesn't mean that you still don't have covid a week later.

My kids have allergies and if they stay home whenever they sneeze or have that post nasal drip cough then they will be home for long stretches of the year. One has ADHD and even missing one or two days of school sets her back weeks because its so difficult for her to figure out what she missed.

I wish that 6-12 grades would make a point of recording all classes , putting all assignments on-line the same day they are given in class (ie not pop up the day before they are due because the teacher isn't timely in posting assignments that she gave in class on-line) and only giving assessments that can be taken on-line from home. This way kids can stay home without worrying about blowing up their grade and kids with underlying conditions that shouldn't attend at all get a fair shot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for all the questions, but with teachers responding, I wanted to ask how you think kids in this situation (especially in high school) make up their work?
How, if classes were in person, would you handle the revolving door of kids being excluded from the classroom? Would they have to get assessments online? If a kid gets sick the day of a quiz and then can't return for two more weeks, then can the other students get the quiz back?

I'm a high school special education teacher, and also a parent of a kid with medical needs who has received homebound instruction.

I think that schools, at least at the high school level, need to figure out ways that kids can participate in their classes from a distance. So, teachers need to be uploading assignments to their calendars that include all the details, similar to what they've hopefully been doing during distance learning. I haven't done DL, because I was on maternity leave this year, but in the past I've struggled with HS teachers who upload half assignments. So, they'll post on their calendar "do the worksheet I handed out in class", without uploading a copy for the kids who weren't there or have an accommodation to type. Or the math teacher will write a list of problems on the board, and ask the kids to copy down the numbers, and then just post "do problems as listed on the board", which doesn't work for the sick kid at home trying to catch up. So, hopefully, we'll bring back what we learned from distance learning and start making accessible assignments.

Schools should also be looking at technology to record the direct instruction part of the class. So, if you're spending 20 minutes talking through a powerpoint, you should be able to post that to a secure portal.

If there's a test, then there needs to be an online version of that test, not asking the kid to wait till they get back. If there's a group project, there needs to be a solo version that a kid can do at home. Yes, it might mean more cheating, and yes there will be kids who are too sick to do the work, but it will help with the need that kids have to come back early so they can catch up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm the parent of an asthmatic/allergic kid, and I'm also a teacher.

I think, unfortunately, kids and teachers will need to stay home if they have respiratory symptoms or a fever, even if we know that the symptoms aren't covid. For one thing, I think that the rule in the classroom is going to be that if you have symptoms you leave. Anything else, is just going to be confusing and open up areas for parents to lie and say they had their kid tested, etc . . .

But I also think that a kid who is asymptomatic for covid, but sneezing due to pollen, for example, is probably going to spread way more virus than a kid who is asymptomatic for anything. If you get tested at the start of the sneezing, and you're negative, it doesn't mean that you still don't have covid a week later.

My kids have allergies and if they stay home whenever they sneeze or have that post nasal drip cough then they will be home for long stretches of the year. One has ADHD and even missing one or two days of school sets her back weeks because its so difficult for her to figure out what she missed.

I wish that 6-12 grades would make a point of recording all classes , putting all assignments on-line the same day they are given in class (ie not pop up the day before they are due because the teacher isn't timely in posting assignments that she gave in class on-line) and only giving assessments that can be taken on-line from home. This way kids can stay home without worrying about blowing up their grade and kids with underlying conditions that shouldn't attend at all get a fair shot.

If we reopen, there has to be something like this in place. Kids staying home cannot be harmed in any way. But that sounds like a lot of work for teachers.

PS - I'm a fellow mom who has been where you are with teachers not posting assignments. At one point, I was borderline suicidal because my kid would not get it together and I didn't have the information to home him accountable. Maybe one good thing that might come of this would be commitment to posting assignments electronically the day they are assigned, rather than making kids get the information from their friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for all the questions, but with teachers responding, I wanted to ask how you think kids in this situation (especially in high school) make up their work?
How, if classes were in person, would you handle the revolving door of kids being excluded from the classroom? Would they have to get assessments online? If a kid gets sick the day of a quiz and then can't return for two more weeks, then can the other students get the quiz back?

I'm a high school special education teacher, and also a parent of a kid with medical needs who has received homebound instruction.

I think that schools, at least at the high school level, need to figure out ways that kids can participate in their classes from a distance. So, teachers need to be uploading assignments to their calendars that include all the details, similar to what they've hopefully been doing during distance learning. I haven't done DL, because I was on maternity leave this year, but in the past I've struggled with HS teachers who upload half assignments. So, they'll post on their calendar "do the worksheet I handed out in class", without uploading a copy for the kids who weren't there or have an accommodation to type. Or the math teacher will write a list of problems on the board, and ask the kids to copy down the numbers, and then just post "do problems as listed on the board", which doesn't work for the sick kid at home trying to catch up. So, hopefully, we'll bring back what we learned from distance learning and start making accessible assignments.

Schools should also be looking at technology to record the direct instruction part of the class. So, if you're spending 20 minutes talking through a powerpoint, you should be able to post that to a secure portal.

If there's a test, then there needs to be an online version of that test, not asking the kid to wait till they get back. If there's a group project, there needs to be a solo version that a kid can do at home. Yes, it might mean more cheating, and yes there will be kids who are too sick to do the work, but it will help with the need that kids have to come back early so they can catch up.

See, we are solving the world's problems here. All of those are great ideas. The one thing I would say is maybe allow kids at home who aren't sick to participate in the group projects from home? Many group projects are completed outside of school anyway. The biggest thing my high school son said he missed during distance learnings, was being able to do work in class with his friends. He likes being able to collaborate and work through problems before asking the teacher questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm just envisioning my "spirited" kid faking a cough every time he doesn't feel like being in school.

I'm one of the PPs. For what it's worth, I'm also para and used to be a clinic sub. In FCPS at least, every student has a card on file in the clinic. You have to document each visit and the outcome. We definitely had some frequent fliers and they were well-known to everyone. I think going forward, the guidance counselors will need to be really on top of students who do this. There will have to be some very serious conversations at school and at home about faking illness and not misusing the clinic as a way to avoid doing work, and also about the importance of reporting any (true) symptoms of illness immediately.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand your question. If he had a headache and cough, he should stay home (including in non-covid times). Would you have sent him to school with a headache before?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand your question. If he had a headache and cough, he should stay home (including in non-covid times). Would you have sent him to school with a headache before?

Yes. My son gets headaches all the time from allergies. So do I. I also cough from post-nasal drip.