Sick Piggies and Plinko

So far we have no confirmed cases of Swine Flu in our school district or county, but there is a backlog of samples that were sent to the CDC. In the meantime, because of our proximity to the border and the huge number of people in our school district who regularly cross it, the current district viewpoint is that it is inevitable that it will hit at least one school, so they have a plan. The plan includes that school closing for 7-10 days (depending on whether the infected person was an adult or a child). If the person rode a school bus to school, that bus will be taken out of commission for that same time. They haven’t decided if the other schools whose children are also on that bus will be closed, or if we’ll have to make up the time at the end of the year. The school district has set up a Twitter account to keep us informed (just one method). They are following the Twitter account of the county health department. So now I have one to keep updated, as information tends to travel slowly at my school — at least accurate information. The school district email with the protocol also says we should take all of our personal stuff home, as should the students (perhaps since school is nearly over — 13 more student days!). Of course the idea is that if our school is closed, we aren’t wandering about and breathing on the public.

We just finished our annual Family Life Curriculum. Trust me — this is not the highlight of my year. We have videos (we saw 3 this time instead of 2) which seem to create more questions than they answer. It’s a five or six day program. The boys with permission went to another teacher. I kept my girls with permission and five students from other teachers. My students without permission went to another class to work on long division.

The school carnival was last night. (Yes, other schools are cancelling gatherings, whilst we invite the whole neighborhood to cobreathe.) It was a lot of fun once it finally started. It starts at 4:30, but there’s really not a lot of options other than just hanging out from the time we’re allowed to leave school at 3 and the carnival start. Plus toward the end I had to set up, which included hiring kids to help me carry the plinko board. Plinko photo Our board wasn’t quite this cool, but you get the idea.

One of the Kindergarten teachers and I “manned” the booth. Our board was numbered 1-6, and if they got a one or a six they didn’t get a prize, but they did for the rest. They were mostly things like from Oriental Trading Company, and a lot were remarkably annoying and noisy, so quite popular. We also got some fresh fruit for ourselves, which was nice!