Reopening schools and excluding sick kids (questions)

[Anonymous]

My son hasn't been feeling well for the past few days. It started with a headache and cough on Tuesday, no fever. If we were in person school, would he need to stay home that day? It seemed like allergies.

The next two days the cough continued. He had a day with stomach issues and slept more than usual. He is not incapacitated, but somewhat off his game. Should he have stayed home during that time?

The cough is still there today. He feels tired still and has a headache. He also now has a sore throat. At this point, he might have been out of school for 4 days (or not).

I called the pediatrician to see if I can get him tested. I mean if he has the virus, then we should not go out, right? Or do we assume that he has it? If we make that assumption, does that mean that he misses two weeks of school potentially for allergies and we miss 2 weeks of work based on symptoms that could be allergies?

There are no walk-in testing places close by. Most require an appointment. I call the pediatrician to ask for an appointment at one of the emissions testing sites nearby. They inform me that they are scheduling him for a telemedicine appointment later today, which must be conducted before they set up the appointment at the emissions center. So we have to wait until later in the day for that appointment before they tell whether we are being referred for a testing appointment. Will the testing appointment be today? Next week? And if it is next week and the test results take 3 days to come back, he would have missed more than a week of school by that time for the sniffles and a headache. What about the rest of us? Do we stay home until we know? I could take him to urgent care, but that may require sitting in a waiting room which I don't want to do.

I was under the impression from the Governor Hogan's press conferences that anyone who wants a test can get one. That may be true, you can't necessarily get one when you want one (at a time that works with your schedule). There are few "no appointment" sites. In a case like my son's, parents will have to incur copays for telehealth visits for every minor sniffle just to be safe and respectful of others or go to school with a mild symptoms and hope for the best (which may get the kid sent home).

In my scenario, when do you call the doctor or go to urgent care? The first day he coughs? When there is a mild sore throat? There has been no fever at any time. He is just mildly ill. What would you do under these circumstances during the school year? When do you stay home? Is fever the determining factor? Are all kids with coughs excluded from school? Is the burden on the family to get a test for a mildly ill child before he can return to school? The more people you have making these decisions the more people are going to send sick kids to school.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't warrant a call to a doctor, let alone a visit. If you have to isolate for even mild illness, how can a kid get an education? If there is are parallel online academic offerings (in person and online), will the online offerings be with a student's actual teachers? How might this work?

In a perfect world we would have onsite rapid tests so that anyone feeling unwell could ask for one. Maybe there is a way to isolate kids who have mild symptoms in the school, such allowing extra space in classrooms for them to keep even more distance from classmates? Or maybe a few desks have plexiglass partitions? 10 days plus days of isolation if you have any cough or fever, etc. will result in quite a bit of missed school. Please don't say it is always this way with cold and flu. The medical and public health guidance differs during influenza and other outbreaks. This won't be just any like other year.

I am not saying this is a reason to close schools or arguing the merits of whether school needs to be full-time F2F. I'm just asking what you think should happen.

[Anonymous]

Your kid stays home so that you don’t end up in a scenario where schools have to fully shutdown because your kid brought in the virus. Safe rather than sorry.

Sorry it’s an inconvenience. The whole virus is for everyone.

[Anonymous]

In my scenario, when do you call the doctor or go to urgent care? The first day he coughs? When there is a mild sore throat? There has been no fever at any time. He is just mildly ill. What would you do under these circumstances during the school year? When do you stay home? Is fever the determining factor? Are all kids with coughs excluded from school? Is the burden on the family to get a test for a mildly ill child before he can return to school? The more people you have making these decisions the more people are going to send sick kids to school.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't warrant a call to a doctor, let alone a visit. If you have to isolate for even mild illness, how can a kid get an education? If there is are parallel online academic offerings (in person and online), will the online offerings be with a student's actual teachers? How might this work?

He has symptoms of Covid, no matter the severity. You would keep him home until he was symptom free for 3 days or tested negative.

Yes, it will mean missed school. Yes, it will be incredibly inconvenient. That is life in a pandemic. You’re right that the guidance needs to be explicit so parents are not making the decisions on their own. They will lean towards the most convenient choice, not the one that is best for the health of everyone in the class.

[Anonymous]

I think he absolutely would have to stay home. Hopefully you will get more no-appt/asymptomatic testing. In my state, you don't need a doctor to schedule an appt (low income area). My child was excluded for school for a week and half right before schools shut down because she has cough variant asthma and was coughing (or maybe she had covid-19).

[Anonymous]

All of you guys should be staying home right now. You should also warn anyone else you all have interacted with and let them know the results of his test.

But yes, your broader point is a good one. We need faster, more accurate, and more readily available testing if we want to reopen effectively and safely.

[Anonymous]

This is why, as a long time classroom teacher, I am worried about going back in the fall. I love my students. I miss them and actually cried when i ended our last zoom call last week. I hate distance learning and believe face to face instruction is ideal.
But...I have an underlying condition and am a single parent. I do not want to chose between the health and safety of my family and a job that provides for that family.

[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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kid stays home so that you don’t end up in a scenario where schools have to fully shutdown because your kid brought in the virus. Safe rather than sorry.

Sorry it’s an inconvenience. The whole virus is for everyone.

There is zero chance that enough parents will do this come Fall.

[Anonymous]

I think your DC would have to stay home. Even if it isn't COVID there is going to be a stigma around sneezing and coughing for quite some time due to the pandemic. Arguing it's allergies or anything else isn't going to work at this time. Parents are going to have to keep kids home for much longer than usual even if it is just a cold.

[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.

This is exactly why we need to do online learning through winter.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the schools can have tests there, just for kids that are symptomatic? Nurse can administer the test? That’s if parent wants the kid to be allowed in school. But if the test is positive then the kid would probably be not allowed back for several weeks.

[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.

My guess will be symptomatic quarantine 14 days. + Covid isolate 10 with 3 being symptom free NO FEVER reducing meds. Per protocol .
The sooner people do this now / quarantine exposed family members/contacts too. The sooner schools can open. I am sure the school health clinics will have a protocol in place as well.

[Anonymous]

All these parents hellbent on FT in person instruction have no idea how often their kid will be home due to new policies. Unless we really do throw caution to the wind.

My own kid is ASD/ADHD and sniffs constantly. It’s a combination of quirk, anxiety and maybe allergies. Good thing he prefers DL I guess, but it’s hardly equitable to kick him out of in person instruction for a disability related issue. Can’t see that lasting.

My own prediction is that we make it thru the fall hybrid style and wind up with all DL by November.

[Anonymous]

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.