Swine Flu

On my home phone message was the superintendent of my school district with a voice message saying that a "probable case of Swine Flu" has been identified in one of the elementary schools within the district that I teach. That school will be closed this whole next week and possibly the whole next week.

I know why the CDC and the world is being careful with the Swine Flu. In 1918 two waves of the Swine Flu killed an estimated 30-50 MILLION people but from all indicators this is not the same strain as that one which was a pandemic. I did not even know what a pandemic was until 7 days ago. There has been one confirmed death in the U.S. More people will die of the common cold in one day than this wave of the Swine Flu.

Closing whole schools down is huge and I personally don't want to be involved in a school that has to close down for 1-2 weeks. One of my students last week thought that closing the school down for 2 weeks would be great. Being the teacher, I seized the moment to talk to the class why that really would not be a good idea. Here are my reasons:

1) If we have to miss 2 weeks of school because of the Swine Flu we will have to make that school up somehow and asked where do you think that will made up? They had no clue. So, I broke the news to them that we would have to go 2 weeks later in June when we should be done and on summer vacation. The whole class gave a collected
groan.
2) Next week we are administering the state wide STAR assessment tests. The teaching moment continued, I asked, "If we don't take the tests next week when are we going to take them?" They responded, "let's just not take them this year". I then needed to tell them that the tests have to be given at a certain time frame and the test would have to be given after a the mandatory 2 week break. Do you want to be away from school and not engaged in learning and preparing for very important tests (honestly, it is not so important for them personally but for us as a school as a whole and not being taken over by the state for not improving our scores for the 3rd year in a row- another post at another time, NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND) and then to come back and test the week after you are first back? They don't completely get this one.
3) Will you have any set plans for your required break? Will your parents have plans for you? No, most likely not. You will be sitting at home with no plans, not able to
go out with friends, no trips to Disneyland or Circus Circus. I reminded them that most of them told me almost 2 weeks ago that most of them were bored to death over spring break because they had nothing to do. Again, another collected groan.

The same student said, "I think you are right. It would be better for our school not to close down."

Comic taken from Google images.