Sounding off. . .

Ok, recently at Tate and Grant's preschool there were 9 kids who attended a party with a child who had Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD). So, alerted by another parent (I assume), the teacher asked for that group of 9 students to stay home from school for the week because the incubation period for HFMD is 3 to 7 days. Makes sense, right? Who would want to spread that around to any other child?

Well then ensued a torrent of emails to the teacher from those parents stating how unfair it was to exclude their children from school based on the fact that they 'might' get HFMD. How do I know this? Because the teacher sent out NINE emails in response to their comments. She had to defend her reason for asking those students to stay home. She got comments on her character, her business sense, and who 'governs' her decision making (like she was making completely random decisions about who will and won't attend school). She ended up having to make a policy change in her handbook and refunded money for the week for those kids who couldn't attend school (I can see why she did it but seriously, that kind of stupidity should not be rewarded).

As this was going on, Ayden had just gotten over being sick and I emailed the teacher and told her that I wasn't sure that it was a good idea to send Tate to school this week. (I wasn't sure if any of the parents had brought their child in despite having been told not to.) I also assured her that I was appreciative of the fact that she was being protective of the children NOT exposed to HFMD, and she emailed me back and assured me that none of the kids that went to that party attended school nor would they be allowed to attend for the entire week. So having that assurance we went ahead and sent both Tate and Grant to school this week.

Holley and I did discuss the fact that these same parents who would gladly send their kids to school after being exposed to HFMD would likely still take their kids to the gym, so we decided that we wouldn't put the kids into the gym playroom this week as a precaution. Well today we were vindicated. When Holley went to the gym she saw one of the parents (and her two kids) from school.

Just making conversation she said, "Does your child attend . . .?"

She said "Yes, but my daughter is one of the kids that went to that party so she isn't in school this week."

So then Holley replies, "I'm surprised that you would bring them here then!" (Go Holley!!)

She said, "Oh, my kids were exposed to it more than a week ago and they don't have any symptoms."

Great. So she was exposed before this last weekend and decided to expose all the other kids at the gym and at school plus all the kids at the party! (I can see this if you don't know about the sickness, but when you KNOW, and you KNOW it's contagious?) Seriously, right now I just want to slap this woman.

On top of that how did she get the right to decide what my children should be exposed to? For what Grant is exposed to?

What the hell? (ok, I'm a little pissed off right now, can you tell?)

I'm so glad that I didn't go to the gym today (I was seriously considering it, and was regretting it right before Holley called me and told me the above story), because then Ayden would have been exposed.