To feel really upset that a mum sent her child to school ill again

[Yesitismeagain]

I work in a primary school. One boy (age 9) cried today because he felt so unwell. He was ill yesterday (temperature and feeling ill with it) and his parents were called early, but they didn't come till normal pick up.

Today he was back in, but was obviously very unwell from the start. The school phoned by 9.30am to come and get him. He was crying, shivering and just lying on the floor in the 'sick room' (a small room off the office).

By 2pm a parent still hadn't arrived. The office were told that the neither parent could come as they work.

Is it just me that this is neglect?

Marynary, yes in some jobs you risk getting dismissed. But, as a parent, that is the risk that you have to take. You don't get to decide that your job is more important than your child. You also don't get to decide that it is more important than other people's children so that it is acceptable to put them at risk by sending your ill child into school. And you don't get to decide that it's the school's function to keep you in your job.

The point about holiday clubs is that, if they're put in the situation this school was in, when the parents eventually do show up they can and do tell them their child's place is terminated with immediate effect. In that situation the parents are just going to have to have a back up plan in place. Why shouldn't they have a back up plan during termtime?

The OP has said that the parents of the DC in question did have emergency contacts/arrangements in place, but that those people refused to collect the DC, in order to avoid infecting their own.

Assuming that these other parents had previously agreed to be emergency contacts for this couple - exactly what else could the parents have done? They have been responsible, arranged for someone to be available if they weren't - and lo and behold, the people concerned proved unreliable.

If the parents are responsible, then they'll try and find more reliable emergency contacts in future, but it's not easy.

Kim, what do you mean you're "saying in general"? You posted about some heartrending situation where parents are doing their utmost to get to their sick child whilst the school ignores him. That isn't a "general" situation, and it's got nothing to do with this thread.

Peruvian, if you ask someone to be the emergency contact for your child, it's your responsibility to make sure that means they would take your child if he were ill. If they have children of their own, it's a fair bet that they won't. Still your responsibility, not the school's.

ic they may say one thing, and do another!

It makes a mockery of the whole principle of emergency contacts if the parent is expected to be able to accomodate their emergency contact - paid or unpaid - letting them down.

I have, in the past, left my DD in the care of paid childcare after school, who has collected her from school. Should I have foreseen the possibility that the childminder may decide not to bother, and make sure I can be available, just in case?

This couples arrangements broke down - and I'm sure the people they relied on won't be asked again.

Emergency contacts are for unforeseen emergencies, not to enable kids to dump their kids at school knowing they're poorly and assume someone else will drop everything to pick up the slack, surely? There's no rule stating that emergency contacts can't have jobs themselves, for the simple reason that this would leave many people with nobody to list.

Even SAHPs may quite reasonably not want to take responsibility for a child who's been very ill since the previous day. The responsibility lies with the parents, and only with them. Yes, perhaps it was impossible for them to leave work, but they have to be contactable at the very least, in case their child is being blue-lighted to hospital - I've been up to school and waited with the child for the ambulance while the mother made her way from her office an hour away direct to the hospital. Really, how often is it truly impossible to stay home and how often is it merely very difficult?

Marynary, yes in some jobs you risk getting dismissed. But, as a parent, that is the risk that you have to take. You don't get to decide that your job is more important than your child. You also don't get to decide that it is more important than other people's children so that it is acceptable to put them at risk by sending your ill child into school. And you don't get to decide that it's the school's function to keep you in your job.

Wow what a sheltered little world you live in. "Oh well, bugger my job, forget paying the rent this week, and eating is a luxury we can do without. It won't matter if I get fired because my boss said that if I leave once more he won't let me back. Of course it's against the law, so I'll just ring the lawyer I have on speed dial, and pay him with money I don't have in order to sue the bastard."

Being fired may very well mean eviction, not being able to afford food and medicine, even being deported for some people.

Marynary, yes in some jobs you risk getting dismissed. But, as a parent, that is the risk that you have to take. You don't get to decide that your job is more important than your child.

It doesn't benefit the child if the parent loses their job and can no longer feed and cloth them. You seem to think that having a job is an optional hobby that people do for fun and that everyone can just switch jobs at the drop of a hat. What planet do you live on?

The point about holiday clubs is that, if they're put in the situation this school was in, when the parents eventually do show up they can and do tell them their child's place is terminated with immediate effect. In that situation the parents are just going to have to have a back up plan in place. Why shouldn't they have a back up plan during termtime?

Where I live they could just enrol their child in a different holiday club so no back up plan required.

Marynary, how many people are seriously going to lose their jobs because they have to go to collect their ill children from school? Particularly people employed in the health service as these parents are.

Face it, no-one in the UK is going to be left with their children starving and naked because they lose their jobs. Are you seriously suggesting that your job is more important than your own or another child's health? If your child infects someone with asthma and they have to be hospitalised and possibly die, are you still going to feel you did the right thing? And if you send your child to school when they are ill and it develops into something serious, you are going to have to take that time off anyway, aren't you?

Well all on for the big drop and run

no-one in the UK is going to be left with their children starving and naked because they lose their jobs

You do indeed live a very sheltered life. .

I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise; I just hope you are never faced with the despair of being unable to feed your DCs, or keep them warm. It's not a nice place to be.

It doesn't benefit the child if the parent loses their job and can no longer feed and cloth them. You seem to think that having a job is an optional hobby that people do for fun and that everyone can just switch jobs at the drop of a hat. What planet do you live on?

I would like to live on a planet where parents put the health of their children first and are not selfish enough to jeopardise the health of other children. I can't understand any other attitude.

Your job vs my child's health? (chronic asthma) Why would you think your job is more important?

Hopefully HTs will begin to deregister children whose parents are irresponsible.

Peruvian: what Mythical said. I'm sorry, but no parent has to leave their children to starve because they lose their jobs, and the risk of losing your job doesn't justify putting other children's health at risk. And I write as a died-in-the-wool lefty who has no illusions about the inadequacies of the benefits system, and one who has been in that position of having small children and no job.

Out of curiosity, at what point if any do you suggest that a child's health comes above the risk of one of their parents losing their job? Take your argument to its logical conclusion and we might as well say it's absolutely fine to send your child into school with anything from chicken pox to double pneumonia.

I would hope the school would do something. If the parents are trying their best to get there - but the school knows it could take time, then the school should do their best for that child if they are shivering and crying.

It is not the schools responsibility to look after a child who is unwell and shivering and needing to lie down for 5 hours. It is the parents responsibility to leave work and collect their child and take him home and make him comfortable. It might take most people much longer than 30 mins as lots of people work out of the area that the school is in but it really shouldn't take anybody 5 hours.
I can't even believe that people are justifying leaving sick children at school based on job security. Most people's jobs will not be at risk if they leave once or twice a year to collect an unwell child and if you feel that your job would be at risk then it's probably a good idea to look for a new job so that you do not have to leave your child sick at school and can do the right thing which is collect your child.
Leaving a child who is unwell at school (and returning him unwell the next day in this case) is wrong on all accounts:
It is unfair on the child who has spent several hours lying on the floor feeling poorly.
It is unfair on other children in the school, particularly those who are immunocompromised.
It is unfair on the teachers and school staff who not only risk catching the illness but are also expected to look after your sick child and do their normal job whilst you continue in your normal duties.

Yes, the emergency contacts could have got the child but ultimately when the emergency contacts can't or won't get your child you drop everything and get your child yourself and then look for new emergency contacts or resign to needing to be available yourself in the future regardless of the difficulties.

Ds goes to school a hour away so even with being a sahp, I couldn't get there any quicker than that. Leaving the child more than a couple of hours is too long.

Yes, the emergency contacts could have got the child but ultimately when the emergency contacts can't or won't get your child you drop everything and get your child yourself

What if I'm a plane journey away? What if there are 3 hour delays on the M3?

If I'd limited my movements while DD was young to being able to "be available within a reasonable time" just in case she was ill, and just in case the emergency contact I'd put in place let me down, then I'd be destitute -

The requirement is for parents to accept jobs within a 90 minute commute (not allowing for holdups); if they don't, then their benefits stop.

If DCs are so immune compromised and their health so vulnerable as to be life threatening if they contract common illnesses, then maybe home education is a better option. Literally thousands of apparently healthy DCs attend school every day only to display symptoms later at home - they are an equal, if not greater risk to vulnerable DCs that the very few who are sent/left while visably unwell.

Unbelievable. All Immunosuppressed children should stay home because your job is more important then their health?

I've seen some selfish people on here but you just take the biscuit.

The world does not revolve around you, nor should it.

mythical I didn't say that.

If a child is at risk of death from contracting a fever/cold from a classmate - as was described upthread - then is a class of 30 DCs really the right place for them?
For every child who is in school with overt symptoms, there will be many more who are contagious while appearing perfectly well. Why would a parent of such a fragile child take the risk? Is that not selfish?

Peruvian, your arguments are getting desperate. If your job requires you to be a plane journey away, you need decent, reliable child care in place. You don't ask the parents of other children to take responsibility if your child is ill because, if you have half a brain, you can work out that they are not going to risk their children catching your child's illness.

As for the three hour motorway queue - yes, it can happen. But two days in succession, for both parents? And how exactly would the parents manage to find themselves at the end of that queue within the 30 minutes that elapsed between leaving their child and the school calling them?

What also enrages me about this sort of attitude is the assumption that the school will pick up the slack. Bloody cheek.

I'm depressed at the thought that there are employers out there who would hold a sick child against you.

You don't ask the parents of other children to take responsibility if your child is ill because, if you have half a brain, you can work out that they are not going to risk their children catching your child's illness.

There are literally dozens of posts on this thread berating parents for not making emergency contact arrangements with other parents - but now, apparently, those are not acceptable because another parent won't collect an ill child?

It seems that the majority of parents are setting themselves up to "neglect" their DC if they fall unwell at school.

(And a lot of parents rely on public transport to get to and from work - trains, ferries, buses, planes......not all of which run a convenient, regular service between work and school in order to accommodate the needs of parents).

While I actually strongly agree that schools are not the place for ill children, no one has yet proposed a realistic alternative that prevents parents such as the one described in the OP either deliberately, or inadvertently, neglecting their DC.

Exactly mythical.
Yes parent may have jobs they can't leave. It's a problem. But why do they get to shrug that problem off onto the school
Stealth drop off went well. Phone off.