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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know, all these people who don't have access to childcare or sick leave.  Such jerks.

Get over yourself, OP, and be glad that's your biggest worry in life.  I mean it.  There are people who have a hell of a lot more to deal with.[/quote]

Give me a break. [b]Are people just not accountable for ANYTHING anymore. [/b]Your kids are sick, you keep them home. I am a pregnant teacher and will not tolerate any sick child in my class. They can sit in the nurses office all day if the parents don’t care to come get them. Most of them eventually do.

Don’t have kids if you can’t take care of them. [/quote]

As a teacher, I believe this is the root of our frustration. I'm sure what I'm about to say won't be very popular, but it's something that's been eating at me slowly throughout the years because there is such a snowball effect as to what schools and teachers are expected to be accountable for. There's been a gradual release of accountability from parents and families, and that has landed on schools/teachers.

Parents forgot to pack a snack? I'm expected to provide one that I have to buy out of my own pocket.  Parents don't provide school supplies? I am expected to provide them and the $200 budget I get for all supplies for the entire year doesn't stretch that far when many students arrive without any school supplies.  The school wants to foster relationships with parents? Teachers are expected to donate food/activities/personal time for the event since the events with the best attendance provide free food. Parents can't afford holiday gifts for their children? There's an angel tree in the staff lounge that we're expected to fulfill. Parents can't pick their kids up from after free school clubs, which we sponsor completely uncompensated, at the designated pick up time? We're expected to sit and wait with the kids until the parents show up. There are schools where there are washers and dryers, and staff rotate taking turns doing laundry for students so that they have clean clothes--my school hasn't gotten to this point yet but the precedent has been set by other schools so it's only a matter of time before it reaches more schools.

So when parents send their clearly sick kids to school, it feels like one more way that they have released accountability for their kids onto us. It's not any of the one things in a vacuum, but the snowball effect of all of them. But when your kid pukes on the carpet in my classroom when they puked at home last night but sent them into school anyway, and then the virus slowly goes through the classroom culminating in my need to take some of my 8 total days of sick leave for the year, it feels like the straw that broke the camel's back.

I work in a focus school, and I stay because I truly care about the kids. The kids aren't responsible for their parents' choices.  But it's morale depleting and frustrating when the parents seem to have time and money for the "wants" but not the "needs" because they know it will be supplied for them. There's money for their 8 year old to have their own iphone, but not $20 for a holiday gift since they know one will be provided if they ask the school. They know that there are no consequences to them for releasing accountability of their kids onto the school. That knowledge allows them to have more kids than they can provide for, as well.  The actual teaching part of my job is almost secondary by now. I am mom, nurse, therapist, janitor and social worker all wrapped up in a teacher's job title.

Cue the "you shouldn't be a teacher" and "I'm glad you're not my child's teacher" comments. No worries, I don't work in a DCUM approved school. But for me, at least, this is a big reason why I get so frustrated when parents send their sick kids to school. Of course, there's also the factor of knowing the kid feels miserable and would much rather be comfortable at home than at school but their parent sent them anyway. I understand what an inconvenience it is to need to be at work but your kid needs to stay home, especially with the sub shortage going on. But I am the parent, not the school, so I do what's best for my kid and what's best for his classmates and teacher which is to keep him home when he's sick. 
[/quote]

1,000,000 % this![/quote]

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