Glasses, Lice, and Swine Flu

I had seen the school nurse a couple times before at Berry, but I had never really had the chance to talk to her...

After this past week I know her fairly well, as she has been at my classroom just about everyday. On Monday the nurse delivered several notes for parents to me and explained how she has been trying to do vision screening of students before school by taking students from the cafeteria (where the students wait until 7:30am when I pick them up). Several of my students have been recommended to get classes. I was a little bit excited as the fact that my students can't read the board could be a very large factor in their success in my classroom.

I had not even had the chance to consider my students vision as a hindrance to their success as I thought through the numerous challenges they had in front of them. On top of most of them struggling to read in their non-native language of English, a lot of them may just be unable to read the words because they cannot see them.

While doing vision screening the nurse also found lice in some of the students in my class. At the moment she told me about the students who would not be in class on Monday due to lice, I felt as if I had it too. Fortunately, I do not have lice, but I am still a little paranoid. I think my class is lice free now... at least for the time being. I have been told that lice can be a big problem at my school due to the living conditions of a lot of my students.

On Tuesday I was notified by the nurse that one of my students that had been absent Monday was being checked for swine flu as six members of her family all currently have the virus. I was supposed to get the results back on Wednesday from the nurse as to the condition of my student, but have found out nothing yet. The student was absent all week though...

A lot of my students have been sick lately so there is definitely something going around. It is really hard to have students missing class as most of them are already so far behind. Missing school just adds to the amount of work they will need to do to get caught up with where they should be.