Last Monday night, about 11 o'clock, we got a bunch of emails from parents in Henry's class, warning us that our school might be closing due to a case of suspected swine flu. A few minutes later emails from the principal and superintendent confirmed it. The week before the Santa Clara County health officials had shut down a few schools with confirmed or unconfirmed swine flu cases. The man on TV said that they'd rather be safe than sorry. An unconfirmed case earns students a week off, a confirmed case, two.
Next morning Henry got up to the good news, yay, no school! Through out the morning we got phone calls, emails, and postings on the school website with a variety and sometimes conflicting information. School was to be closed till Monday, but they were also hoping to open on Friday. We were asked to keep the kids at home, away from group activities. The unlucky kid was not in Henry's class, was not in his grade. They couldn't tell us who the kid was to protect his/her privacy, so we'd have no clue how close Henry had come in contact with the suspected virus. Home work was passed out for the week, and teachers planned to be in school in the mornings so parents (sans kids) could pick up material, etc.
Bill went to work on Tuesday, just to be sent home since he's living with someone that had the potential of having come in contact with a suspected case of the piggie flu. We decided to hunker down for the week and enjoy our time together. Our only fear was that Henry might not be allowed to attend his basketball games.
By two o'clock Governor Arnie declared State of Emergency. We are in war!
Less than two hours later, a bunch more emails came in from Henry's teacher and the school officials, school is open! Kids, bring your happy little faces back to school on Wednesday, and get ready for more STAR testing for the rest of the week. Apparently CDC woke up and realized the piggie was only a baby flu, and the County health official dude got tired of seeing school-less kids running around the streets cause they couldn't find anything better to do.
Our resident student wasn't too thrilled about the news. There goes the Swine Break.
3 comments:
I couldn't get over the hype on this. Luckily (well, for me anyway heh) the schools around here decided to take a wait and see approach. So far, so good.
I saw this on the news but didn't realize it was your school! It's the inconsistency that makes you nuts!!! No there isn't any school, oh wait, it's not that bad, yes you can come back!
Yes and what are parents supposed to do with their kids? What about parents that don't have any sick leave? Scary stuff.
I don't know what to think anymore at this point. We haven't had any cases near us yet...I'm trying not to be paranoid. :)
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