There is a possibility that three students from the Pre-K classes have swine flu. I was printing a few things off the computer at the main desk when a mother came in with her swine flu son to tell the school that he has swine flu. And the kid actually took off his face mask to say hello to Miss Lee at the front desk. Brilliant containment strategy.
Throughout the day there was talk of closing school for the rest of the week. By the end of the day we still hadn't heard anything official from Julia or David. We went to the scheduled meeting to see who would be volunteering to cover the Saturday kindergarten class. The situation in a nutshell: Julia and David don't want to hire another teacher for this class, so they ask us to volunteer and the students aren't learning anything because they have to adjust to a different teacher every 2 months.
When David asked us who was going to volunteer for November and December, not a single teacher raised her hand. The pay isn't nearly enough for all of the teaching hours, lesson planning, and report card duty, and the students need a proper teacher, so we all pretty much made an agreement to not volunteer. David was visibly annoyed with us, but we stood our ground.
Before the meeting adjourned Julia casually mentioned the possible swine flu outbreak at Maple Bear. She told us to come in to work tomorrow because we still have to work our normal hours, and that we would be expected to move our belongings up to our new offices and to clean it as well. We will also have to disinfect our classrooms. Meeting adjourned.
The other teachers were upset about all of this, complaining that this wouldn't happen in the US/Canada and that it's not their job to be moving boxes and cleaning up after the construction workers. I just shrugged it off. The way I see it, the swine flu scare has given us a two-day break from teaching and we have ample time to move our stuff up to our offices. We don't have to worry about cleaning and moving things during the work week while we're preoccupied with teaching. Too bad the swine flu scare didn't happen on Monday - free week!
So nice to read your blog again! My coffee just doesn't taste the same in the morning without the added enjoyment of reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteI respect your attitude about moving boxes/cleaning. Ten bucks says that most US teachers have to do their own lifting, hauling and cleaning...and that on a daily basis they have sick kids who could very well have swine flu in their classrooms! Teachers out there, am I right about this?
Yes, Martha is right! I've had a few students with swine flu and definitely haven't gotten to change classrooms because of it. Today so many kids were coughing and sneezing! They better not get me sick again!! :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd OMG, the amount of cleaning I do every day! We constantly disinfect the tables in the hopes of not spreading all the germs around. It's not a glamorous job, is it??
I wish we could disinfect the tables. I've been looking all over the place for Lysol or it's equivalent, but I don't think I'm looking in the right place. Here's the extent of disinfecting that is done on a daily basis in my classroom: wiping down the main table with a wet cloth. Done!
ReplyDeleteIt's no wonder I keep getting sick.
Vinegar. White vinegar and water is an excellent cleaner and disinfectant. And cheap, too.
ReplyDelete