Hey all, we just found out that one of our students got corona. It’s a typical after-school program so all students are in very close proximity with each other as well as teachers.
Our boss wants us to come in as normal while they contact the health center.
Is this normal? Would you feel comfortable going in after just seeing this student? I’m kind of at a loss/worried about it. Any advice would be appreciated!
22 comments
Depends on the timing.
We’ve had kids show up with corona during GW or shit like that and that kid just doesn’t come to school.
We’ve had kids who were at school the previous day test positive and then the school is shut down.
If it’s just the one kid and the last time you saw them was Friday, I don’t know that I would freak out so much. You should be a germaphobe by now anyhow.
The health authority gave very clear directives.
They had all the teachers stay home in one case while we waited for testing of contact tested teachers.
In another case, they decided that enough time had passed over the weekend that we were allowed back.
In short, the school didn’t make the decisions, it was the ward’s health authority
If you work for a public school it will follow your prefecture’s rules.
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My youngest takes some classes at a Juku and they closed for two weeks because someone tested positive. If your company doesn’t close for two weeks and another customer is infected, they risk losing business and harming their reputation. From an employee point of view you may want to think about finding other work if they don’t close. Not closing means they con’t care about the health of the customers and definitely don’t care about the employees.
I work in a national university.
Students must wear masks, sit away from each other and classes are taught with all the windows open.
Therefore, there are ‘never cases of close contact’.
Everything they do outside of class for example hang out together and eat with their masks off – is their problem and not the university’s.
Yes this is bullshit ridiculous and I was in awe that the people who told me this did so with a straight face.
Depends on your school and health authority.
*Generally* if everyone is masked (especially the student in question) then the health authority is unlikely to rule anyone as close contacts, and things will often go on as normal.
While waiting for test results it is not unusual to halt things, but there is no consistent guidance on this and different places are handling it differently.
If I had just seen that student and we were both masked throughout our interactions and the health authority had ruled that I wasn’t a close contact… well I’m not sure I would be 100% comfortable, but given the current state of affairs I would not refuse work…
Hah-hah, protocol? What’s a protocol? Basically we just make it up as we go along, following the med center’s advice so we don’t have to take responsibility.
Long story short, no, I wouldn’t feel comfortable. But the challenge is figuring out how much discomfort is legitimate concern about creating a situation where disease can spread and how much discomfort is just generalized anxiety about “these uncertain times”. I know in various parts of Tokyo there are places you can get inexpensive same-day or next-day testing done if you are worried. I hope in your area you can find a service like that.
For some stupid reason, they seem to think there is a 0% chance of transmission if everyone is wearing masks, which has shown to be false. So if you’ve been sitting next to the infected person for hours a day, wearing masks, you have to fight tooth and nail to get a test.
Classroom/grade closes for the day and students who sit directly next to the infected student get tested. Under no circumstances are the infected student’s friends who he hung out with maskless every day to be tested. Everyone is back to school the next day and most club activities are maskless because it’s too hot to do sports in a mask or you can’t play a trumpet, filling the room with your spit, in a mask.
Same situation. I was asked not to get tested, because I had classes to teach that day. I refused to continue to be exposed to maskless students and was fired
My school cancels that specific class for a week and we all need to get tested
My school? “If they were wearing masks it’s not close contact.” Which is obvious horse shit, but that’s the line this country has decided to go with. In answer to your question, when it came up
I refused to go in until I had assurance in the form of negative Covid tests from the people the student had contact with.
i dont even think mine has one in place. 1st time it was their whole soccer club getting infected and we had to close down and go online for an entire year. Then they planned to open again this year (my 3rd uni year) but then there was another case of cluster infection. But still they still opened back, while mentioning us to “not let any ‘rumors’ spreading around”. then they closed everything down again 3 months in anyways. now its summer vacation.
what frustrates me is that we still had to pay the facilities fee which is almost half of the tuition already, despite not being allowed (rightfully so) to use any of them. not even the library (last year, now we can)
If 10 students in a class get it then that class is quarrentined and doesn’t come to school…which is hilarious as my largest class has 5 students as I work in a remote valley.
School protocol?
Hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha. That’s funny.
-edit: sweep it under the rug.
My private school essentially does, nothing.
They do have the common courtesy to tell the teachers in the teacher’s room during morning meetings though. Without a microphone (big room) so the students don’t hear. lol. The student in question is told to stay home, but this student’s homeroom is essentially kept in the dark. Because they aren’t considered close contact. Hahahaha.
I’ve been teaching online for the past year and a half. Our protocol, then, is to not be in contact with anyone face to face unless it is absolutely necessary, and for teaching staff/students it’s not been necessary.
Honestly, only you can decide what is an acceptable level of risk.
If you have any underlying conditions, then you should be extremely cautious about going to work for the next two weeks, and maybe even think about taking vacation days or even quitting. It’s not worth a risk to your life.
If you are already vaccinated, you are probably personally safe – but should consider that vaccinated people can pass the virus to others, so you’d be potentially putting anyone you come into contact with (in the train, at home, walking…) in danger.
There’s no good answer here, especially considering that your school management is stupid and careless enough to be doing face to face classes right now.
The protocol should be to contact the health department and the health department typically acts within the day or certainly within the next day to give a recommendation. If there’s no close contact and no food then typically no other people would have to stay home.
Some places might take the risky position of not telling the health department, and if your work is some such place then you should carefully consider the risks. On the other hand, surely there are many students who get sick but don’t explicitly tell the schools why they’re absent, so you still have some risk anyway, and there’s little way of knowing how much.
Probably hide it and try to not acknowledge it.
When my elementary school saw 2 grades get hit with corona: those grades sent home but otherwise it’s business as usual.
When my junior high school saw 2 students catch corona: school closed for 4 days as all staff (including me, the dispatch worker) has to go to the Board of Education for a PCR test.
It depends on your BOE I think.
PS. In the JHS scenario I had actually taught one of the students and noticed they looked like they were dying. I pointed them out to the JTE, who dismissed it as “he’s always sleeping though lessons”. She ignored me when I pointed out that he was rolling around in his seat, apparently in a fever and massive discomfort. That school was closed the next day (for 4 days) but I wouldn’t hear about it until 3 days later while working at my other JHS. It appears everyone forgot that I had taught these students that day.
The prefectural BoE and the health authority send regular updates to schools in the city in which I teach (the emails and docs are cc’d to all teachers). We follow the directive of the health authority. It’s case by case depending on the route of infection, when/if the person who was exposed or infected attended.
I work at a semi-public nursery school. If someone at my school got it, the school would close for two weeks. There has been one staff member recently who didn’t get it, but someone at her son’s school did, so she was asked to not come for two weeks. The same happened with a student whose aunt got it.
My school sent the class with the student and the the two neighboring classes home.
Students who were in the same club as the person were also sent home.
School was in session for everyone else.