The dance begins again

Saturday morning starts with a lazy, hazy spin to reality. The house is quiet and the dog is snoring. The pounding in my head begins as I inhale, recalling just now that it’s the first few weeks of school and, of course, I already have a nasty virus. My chest is heavy, my voice sounds like I smoke six packs a day and I am relatively sure the baggage under my eyes would get me to Paris in a pinch.

Ah, the glamorous life of a school teacher; avoiding touching pencils, encouraging proper hand washing techniques and a nearly manic routine of scouring my own hands every time I touch their desks, chairs, books, lunchboxes, etc. I examine each of them warily as they enter in the morning. Checking for signs runny noses, watery eyes, headache-ridden faces, I try to gauge the energy of the class for the day. And the yearly Dance of Immunity begins. Places please.

Illnesses usually hit my classroom in waves. Somewhere in the dead of winter we can count on a bout of some nasty bug to hit the class and take out any number of kids. Every spring and fall we have numerous cases of allergies and head colds, and then there’s always the terrifying run of the head lice. One year, a flu bug claimed nine kids from my classroom in a single day. It’s particularly difficult at the beginning of the year, but there’s really no good time for kids (or teachers) to be sick. This morning, and every other morning in the school year, I thank the heavens for the school nurse.

Between sips of coffee and Kleenex breaks, I find myself wondering about the wisdom of the school district’s decision to cut back on nursing staff within our schools. After reading over the school district’s 2011-2012 preliminary budget, I’m even more confused. “Nurse staffing was determined using a staffing formula.” Hmm, that’s vague. I wonder about the impact this will have on our students and our teachers. We would be naive to dismiss the importance of our school nurses and the critical roles they play.

Our school is lucky. Our nurse is with us most of the week, with her hours cut this school year by only one day a week. She’s there to comfort our kids, to help us bridge a gap between support services and to call parents when their children are in need. She sets up our emergency backpacks for us, prepares disaster supplies for each classroom, attends our meetings, gives out clean clothes when needed and she has those nifty little tooth boxes to give kids when they lose a tooth at school.

And this morning, it is our school nurse, Lisa Jenson, who is the quiet little voice inside my head urging me to lay low today and not to go into school this weekend, advising me to take some time and get well myself so that I can be on my game for the kids when they need me next week. I want to thank her in advance for the empathy she will give my students this school year when they shuffle down to her office with aches and ailments. She always has a smile, a soft, kind word and some kind of wisdom to impart — even if it is by proxy to a sick teacher on a Saturday morning at the beginning of the school year.

Vanessa Powell is a National Board Certified Teacher. She teaches fifth grade at Snowshoe Elementary School in Wasilla.