Antibiotics for 20 Days

Small sick one sneezes

all over wet sub papers.

I want to go home.

Not in the Gym though She’d Like to Be

Broken young humans

wear boots and casts to walk.

Humans break easy.

In Self-Contained at the End of the Hall

Dan who cannot speak

moans, waves hands that cannot grasp,

runs and talks in dreams.

Eduhonesty:

One thing about “Dan” that people may miss. Not all our Dans and younger children can tell us if they are sick. That 20 days on antibiotics was real, and I walked right into it. I’d been sitting beside “Alex,” this nonverbal little guy all morning, smiling at him as his large dark eyes watched me. It wasn’t until he took my hand when we walked to the bathroom that I realized how hot he was. Heat was baking in silent waves off that little hand.

Kids don’t get the same cues adults do and they don’t always understand those cues. They throw up all over their desk and the classroom floor because they don’t see it coming. Or they know they feel nauseated but they don’t know exactly what to do next. This is not a bathroom emergency for which the protocol is clear. Should they ask to see the nurse? Interrupt the teacher? Do they feel that bad? Before a kid comes up with a working strategy, breakfast may spew all over everywhere, and suddenly the custodian is doing biohazard duty while the teacher is heading off future teasing and managing excited eruptions throughout the classroom.

As to that girl missing gym, that above haiku contains another truth: Kids will go to school injured, and older kids especially will also choose to go to school sick. They don’t usually get on the bus or in the car when aching and feverish — although that happens — but humans, young and old, are masters of rationalization. “It can’t be COVID. I don’t feel that bad.” “My allergies are so bad right now.” “If I don’t go, mom won’t let me go to Erin’s party tomorrow.” “I promised Mark I’d meet him at lunch. I don’t want him to go to lunch with Marta. I know she likes him.” Children and adolescents tend to live in the present, with friends and fun trumping any other considerations.

Even parents rationalize away illnesses. Or ignore them. I got pink-eye twice from a bank vice president — or, rather, her daughter who turned up in class with eyes that shouted, “Doctor, please!”

Eduhonesty: This post is in support of teachers who are asking parents and others to understand why they don’t want to be in the classroom when children are demonstrably getting sick all over the country. I’d like to take a moment to praise those Chicago and other students who are raising flags about health and safety. No, some schools at this time are not safe. For those schools, a remote option should be available.

This is not convenience. This is health. The evidence has been piling up that not everyone who gets COVID can expect to be well in two weeks — or even two months. A close relative of mine lost her sense of taste and smell to COVID and still has not recovered those senses; it’s going on one year and two months now and counting.

“When you have your health, you have everything. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all.”

Augustin Burroughs

Schools are not little corporations filled with adults who understand expectations and protocols. They are often old, too-airless buildings filled with kids who look like sardines while navigating passing periods. Most of those packed-in kids remain hazy on germ theory, although they know much more than they did two years ago. And, oh my, can America’s students be slimy. I have wiped so many noses in my past and watched at least as many noses get wiped on handy sleeves. Sometimes kids with bad allergies just run around with snot on their face for months. That’s kids, especially in winter.

I understand the fierce desire to open school doors. This is education, and for many children education works best inside a classroom. Opening those doors is a tough decision, one which has to be informed by numbers, but what I want to emphasize is this: NUMBERS ARE NOT ENOUGH!

The plans we make also must take into consideration KIDS — KIDS who are not now and never have been little adults. Numbers from a mostly adult population don’t truly apply to groups of children in closed spaces. Children cannot be treated as inputs into a plan that ignores childhood.

I don’t know how we got to this place, this angry place that has many parents and others demanding a return to the education of 2018. I understand fully the desire to go back in time to a simpler time. But simple plans can be too simple and bold policies can be too bold.

Let’s try to put this in a nutshell: Government leaders and school board members are creating and implementing strategies that rely on the diligence and caution of people who still believe in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy. In middle schools and high schools, those plans expect circumspect behavior from adolescents. “Circumspect adolescent” is a perfect oxymoron — a case of clearly misunderstood use of exact estimates which somehow end in an only choice that is no choice.

When transmission rates are too high, I believe we must shut the doors. We don’t have to shut those doors for the year or maybe even for the month. But we must be ready to shut the door until the wave passes:

1) For the sake of the grandmas and grandpas who may end up coughing and feverish, shots or no shots. My boosted mom is doing pretty well after a week with COVID, but her bedrest likely created increasing problems with a clot in her leg.

2) For the sake of other family members whose “sick leave” may have already left and whose income may not allow them to skip work. US businesses now often have a vaccine or weekly test policy, but omicron is managing to break through the vaccines. My mom is a symptomatic break-through case in a memory care facility. It’s worth taking a moment to think about places where employees are tested weekly. If Tom is tested every Wednesday, what happens when he gets sick on Thursday? The answer will only sometimes be, “Tom takes time off and goes to bed.”

3) For the sake of the kids who do not need the guilt of thinking they made their family or friends sick — or worse. For the sake of the kids who may get sick — yes, the percentage of truly ill children with COVID is extremely small, but a small percentage spread over millions of kids will result in many very sick kids regardless. And when “Dan” starts getting really sick, he will struggle to communicate that fact. Our schools are filled with vulnerable kids. At the start of the year, a teacher is given a list and there is nothing strange about finding students with diabetes, immunosuppression from medications, or chronic lung disease. (These kids should have a remote option regardless of the state of the pandemic.) Obesity is an established risk factor for children and is rampant in the US today.

Plans for outbreaks should always include well-thought-out options for closing the doors in worse case scenarios.