A plea: please stop sending your sick kids to school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is talking about keeping kids with a little runny nose home. I had two students who were absolutely miserable today. Heads down on their desks, deep wet coughs that they didn’t have last week, clearly out of it. Their parents both avoided answering the school’s phone calls. The nurse put a mask on them and sent them back to class. I stayed far away from them all day, and I mask. I have two vulnerable relatives coming to my thanksgiving, and I know I’m not the only one. Their behavior is selfish. You have a busy day at work? Join the club! So do I and so do all the parents of the other kids in the class. I feel awful for the kids who are sitting in class, clearly ill, and I feel bad that the other parents aren’t witnessing this scene so they can decide to mask their own child.

Why would the nurse send a very sick kid back to class? Why not let them lay down and nap in the nurse’s office?

It’s lie down.

The clinics aren’t nap rooms, lactation rooms, safe spaces or a place to go when you’re having a rough day and want to skip part of a class.

The Nurse’s Office that most of you are picturing generally has been carved up and remodeled and renovated into a space not much bigger than a CVS Minute Clinic. Add to that an average of 30 students traipsing through the doors. Sure, some just need a band aid but there are students with fevers, vomiting, lice, diarrhea, etc. Those students need to be separated and have access to a bathroom while they wait for a parent. Then there are students who receive their daily meds from the clinic.

Do you want your otherwise healthy student coming in and resting next to a student who just vomited in the shared clinic bathroom?

Since Covid, we strictly limit “rest” (and similar requests). When I tell students (without a fever or any other complaints) that I don’t allow naps, most all leave or ask for a pass to a counselor’s office. Most go right back to class.

Most all leave? Okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll reiterate that this thread, at base, is just about shaming parents.

So what. Sometimes people need to be shamed when they act badly.

Reading these threads are so depressing. People don't listen to each other. A teacher wants you to keep your kids home when they are contagious. The OP clarified they were talking about just a few days, not week, but you have pages of posters droning on and on about extremes.

People are selfish and stupid.

Yeah, there's that person that seems selfish and stupid going on about keeping kids home for colds.

That person apparently has no empathy for parents and can't think of the community.

But the spirit of the OP was about people who send their kids in too soon when they are truly sick (fever etc) and contagious.

And you have proven my point about the stupid in this thread of focusing on extremes. Ugh. Morons. Covid-pandemic brain rot....everyone is trying to keep my kids out of schoooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.


The real problem here is capitalism and family-UNfriendly policies that make it hard for so many parents to just stay home and care for sick children (or their sick selves).

So everyone can agree we should all elect representatives that will fight for more family-friendly maternity and sick-leave policies...right?? right!!??

Disagree on the "spirit of the OP." And maybe if you are trying to be the "voice of reason" don't inject so such sneering snark that obviously devalues certain perspectives.

But anyway....

I agree completely that the enemy is family un-friendly policies that force parents to either go broke or send their (very) sick kids to school. So perhaps the people on this thread can turn their ire there, versus being consistently jack-holes to parents. Perhaps they can stop pretending that this is an individual, versus a collective, problem.

No, the spirit of the OP was please don't send your super sick kids to school. Read it again.

Sorry if you don't like the sneering but I am at my limit with stupid people these days. We are coming out of a pandemic and the privileged whiners in this area going on an on as though we were going to come through that somehow with no repercussions. They have to have their scapegoats. Right now people are so raw about illness-related stuff and school attendance because of the pandemic and they have become, frankly, irrational. It sucked. Our kids suffered...ALL our kids, but that does not excuse irresponsible behavior now or ever. There are many people who I feel for that send sick kids to school because they feel they have no choice. But there are also a-hats that send their kids to school because they just don't care. Some of them are on this thread.

So that's the thing...there are different kinds of people and some of them are jerks. It's okay to call out the jerks. I'm tired of this you cant' shame anyone nonsense. Shame serves a useful societal purpose in some cases. And this is not an all-or-nothing proposition.

Shame doesn't actually work to create the desired outcome. It just makes people belligerent to your viewpoint. See: what has happened with covid.

You really don't know what's going on in people's lives, just assuming in order to judge. You cling to that judgement, I guess because you feel insecure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll reiterate that this thread, at base, is just about shaming parents.

So what. Sometimes people need to be shamed when they act badly.

Reading these threads are so depressing. People don't listen to each other. A teacher wants you to keep your kids home when they are contagious. The OP clarified they were talking about just a few days, not week, but you have pages of posters droning on and on about extremes.

People are selfish and stupid.

Yeah, there's that person that seems selfish and stupid going on about keeping kids home for colds.

That person apparently has no empathy for parents and can't think of the community.

But the spirit of the OP was about people who send their kids in too soon when they are truly sick (fever etc) and contagious.

And you have proven my point about the stupid in this thread of focusing on extremes. Ugh. Morons. Covid-pandemic brain rot....everyone is trying to keep my kids out of schoooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.


The real problem here is capitalism and family-UNfriendly policies that make it hard for so many parents to just stay home and care for sick children (or their sick selves).

So everyone can agree we should all elect representatives that will fight for more family-friendly maternity and sick-leave policies...right?? right!!??

Disagree on the "spirit of the OP." And maybe if you are trying to be the "voice of reason" don't inject so such sneering snark that obviously devalues certain perspectives.

But anyway....

I agree completely that the enemy is family un-friendly policies that force parents to either go broke or send their (very) sick kids to school. So perhaps the people on this thread can turn their ire there, versus being consistently jack-holes to parents. Perhaps they can stop pretending that this is an individual, versus a collective, problem.

No, the spirit of the OP was please don't send your super sick kids to school. Read it again.

Sorry if you don't like the sneering but I am at my limit with stupid people these days. We are coming out of a pandemic and the privileged whiners in this area going on an on as though we were going to come through that somehow with no repercussions. They have to have their scapegoats. Right now people are so raw about illness-related stuff and school attendance because of the pandemic and they have become, frankly, irrational. It sucked. Our kids suffered...ALL our kids, but that does not excuse irresponsible behavior now or ever. There are many people who I feel for that send sick kids to school because they feel they have no choice. But there are also a-hats that send their kids to school because they just don't care. Some of them are on this thread.

So that's the thing...there are different kinds of people and some of them are jerks. It's okay to call out the jerks. I'm tired of this you cant' shame anyone nonsense. Shame serves a useful societal purpose in some cases. And this is not an all-or-nothing proposition.

Shame doesn't actually work to create the desired outcome. It just makes people belligerent to your viewpoint. See: what has happened with covid.

You really don't know what's going on in people's lives, just assuming in order to judge. You cling to that judgement, I guess because you feel insecure.

Hey, stop shaming the PP.