Or is it H1N1? I can’t keep these things straight. Not sure if I mentioned that I had two kids in reading class who missed many days of school. When one of them came back, I found out he’d been out with Swine Flu. He’s still not actually healthy, and is coughing the two hours I have him. Mr. Q’s class had eleven kids absent today. I only had four out sick, one moved, and one on vacation. Even one of the teachers was sent home with it. One school here was going to close, since they had a 41% infection rate.
Our school has a couple of problems with illnesses. First of all, a portion of our school is the Special Ed program. Some of these kids are medically fragile. Some are in the nurse’s office every day for tube feedings. This is not a place that you want full of swine flu germs. I found out today that the nurse is taking the special ed kids’ temps twice a day. Another problem is that parents send their kids to school sick, plus they don’t want to pick them up and take them home if they’re sick. This is the scenario — the uncle’s cousin’s neighbor’s grandfather is sick, so the whole family stays home from school. The kid himself or herself is actually sick, and they’re sent to school. At least half the parents don’t have phones, but of those that do, many don’t come pick their kids up, so they’re in the nurse’s office the entire day. We got a note that says if they have the list of symptoms, to send them straight to the nurse’s office, even if they just got to school.
Now, there’s never an actual “good” time to get sick, but this week is the end of the quarter. Tomorrow is our math test. I’m wondering how many kids will be there to take it!!
In the meantime, one boy was out all last week. I’d see is sister and ask if he was sick, and she’d say she didn’t know. She didn’t really seem to dense to know if her brother was sick or not, so I talked to the office about it. A few times. On Monday they found out that mom moved. She took two of the kids and Dad took the other two, so I was talking to one of Dad’s kids (who are still at our school).
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Speaking of viruses, the Conficker virus has been going around the school district’s computers. Many were too old to even accept the patches, which is when I discovered, to my shock, that there are actually computers older than mine in classrooms! Well, actually, not any more! After their constantly trying to do this and that, they finally yesterday came and took all of our hard drives. They brought back nice, shiny ones today and got our computers going. I went to check my school email using the Outlook program, and it’s a totally different-looking one from what it’s been. Well, briefly. Then for the umpteenth time in the past few weeks we lost our server, all internet, and all phones. A student had to call home, so I had to have her use my cell phone. The front pocket of my purse has better technology than the entire rest of the school!
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Half of Thursday and all of Friday, I went to an OMA workshop. That’s our non-existent music program that was teaching the fourth graders to play the violin prior to this year. The workshop was great — all about integrating the arts into the curriculum. Schools that have a full OMA program are cold OMA Gold. I told them my school is OMA Tinfoil. It was nice to be at a workshop with people who wanted to be there and who like teaching, and to learn new stuff. Friday they served an awesome lunch. Usually workshops have a nasty lunch, and it’s usually some version of chicken. There was some chickeny thing there, sort of like an afterthought, but the main meal was Mexican food. Yum!
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I AM NO LONGER A STUDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, indeedee, it’s true! My official last day of class was yesterday, although I was finished with all my work on Saturday. The teacher said he’d post our grades by Wednesday at the latest. Once he does that, I can get a transcript sent to the school district saying I have a nice, shiny Master’s degree!!!! I started August 5 or 6 of 2008 and the only time off I had was a brief vacation at Christmas. You can take a week off between classes, but I’d rather plow through, which I did!
I’ve not seen any graduation ceremonies in Tucson, even though they have an on-campus program here. Maybe they just do December and June. At least, I’m hoping! The other choices are getting up way too early to drive to Phoenix or to Yuma. So I may just skip the Walk. They don’t give you your diploma then anyway, and there won’t be a single person in the room who was in any of my classes.
That’s mostly what’s new. I don’t write much because sometimes I’m busy and sometimes I think I’m just talking to myself! Oh, well.
