I'm not sure what to do with sending the boys to school on Monday. There are a few more "suspected cases" in the school district. One of the cases that was a "suspected"case has come back positive for H1N1 (swine flu). This is the child whose mother works in the lunch room at B's school. Additionally, that child's younger sibling has also shown signs of the flu. Both the elementary school and the middle school of these children have been closed for the next week. There are "suspected" cases in 3 other schools now. However, at this point, the school district is leaving the other schools open until they get confirmation as to whether or not the Type A flu that these children have been diagnosed with is the H1N1 virus. Personal opinion: This is stupid! While they're leaving the buildings open and operational, more and more kids are being exposed. Let me explain how....
The school district the boys are in right now covers over 200 square miles and 14 communities. We're country. All the kids around here are bussed in. The elementary kids go to school before the Jr and Sr high kids. I found this really weird when we moved in as I was used to it being the opposite way. Right now, with over 13,000 kids in this district and serving 14 communities, we have 1 high school. The 2nd one will open next fall with a 3rd one under construction. So, the buses pick up the kids for the elementary schools in the morning (the boys used to catch the elementary bus at 6:45 AM) and drop those kids off at the elementary schools. Immediately after dropping off the elementary kids off, those very same buses start running the route for the Jr/Sr high kids. The Jr high is across the street from the high school and they have 6-12Th grade on the same bus. There is absolutely no way that they are cleaning buses between routes. They only have an hour from the time they drop the elementary kids off to pick up their 6-12th graders and get them to the Jr and Sr high schools. And they Jr and Sr highs have a 10 min start and end time difference to allow time for the buses to drive across the road. The high school bus delivers kids home in this neighborhood just after 5 PM. Now, I will be the first to admit that my kids haven't been on the bus in over 2 years. I quit putting them on the bus after the boys ended up on a route with a bus with no AC. Now, for you folks that live up north- that might not sound too bad. But August in TX on a bus for over an hour with no AC is bad. And the idiots wouldn't let the kids open the windows or have drinks on the bus. Not even water. So, after the boys got off the bus one day puking from being over-heated, I started running them back and forth to school. It take me like 15 min one way and it's a whole lot easier to pick them up and be home by 4:15 when we have some place to be than to leave them on a bus till after 5 at night. Plus, I hate mornings. If I run them to school, we don't even have to get out of bed till 30 min after the bus has run thru here. All in all, it makes my life easier to not stick them on the bus. Plus, before Little Man killed his car- he just drove and dropped B off on his way and I didn't have to drive in the morning at all.
Both of the elementary schools that have "suspected" cases that are still waiting on confirmation feed into the Jr high that B goes to. Now, where I don't have to worry about him catching anything from the nasty germ mobile because he doesn't ride it- but the other kids going to his school do. All of his friends from our neighborhood to be more specific. I know that they say that this flu isn't near as bad as they originally thought. But we're back to the already compromised immune system he has at that point. Flu-- B--Bad. Doesn't much matter what variety it is. Now, don't think I'm a paranoid type person. Take a look at the videos of what my kids do for fun if you think I might be. I've been known to use butterfly band aids and liquid band aid on things that might well have qualified for stitches before. If it isn't broke, I don't want to hear about it is my general motto. We've had broken bones, stitches, staples, and surgeries. Little Man has had meningitis, both Little Man and Hurricane have had emergency appendectomies. I have boys. They're constantly wrestling and rough housing. But I don't know how B will react to an unknown flu bug with his breathing. And as I've discussed before- Blue is not his color. Breathing is a good thing.
So, I'm debating keeping them home Monday to see what the health departments verdict is. If the other cases aren't H1N1 and are just a random virus, well that's still bad but better than the alternative. If the other 2 schools do have positive cases of the swine flu.... well, then what they're doing is shutting down the districts. Every district that borders ours has already been shut down. Or do I send them to school and trust that the lunch lady doesn't show up and they've actually disinfected things. In a school that's averaging over 30 kids per class. Yeah- right. Schools are germ factories to start with. And we all know that teens are so good at following directions and precautions right? Am I wrong to hope that the health dept will shut things down tomorrow and then I won't have to worry about it?
4 weeks ago
