The school year is almost half over, but for some families it feels like it has barely started; their children hardly having been in class due to recurring colds and flu.
Jamie Colwell’s child is 11-years-old and suffers from asthma. He is susceptible to getting sick frequently, but this year it feels like he has been at home more than at school.
“It has been a perfect storm,” Colwell said. “With people not wearing masks and sending their kids to school sick, germs keep on spreading.”
Coupled with two years of virtual learning caused by the pandemic, and sprinkle in missed days with recent strikes, Colwell is not alone in fearing his son's recurring illness is putting him behind at school.
“It’s frustrating, because we want him in school, he’s missed so much time already and he needs to catch up. Every time that we try to get him to a point where he could get caught up, he'll catch something.”
He wants to see parents be more responsible and not send their kids who are sick back to class.
Colwell understands that some parents cannot afford to stay home with their kids every time they catch a cold, but wants to see a change.
“There needs to be more paid sick days for parents, especially in times like these. There has to be more done to help support the parents and children who are getting sick.” said Colwell.
As soon as his child is on the mend and symptom free, he heads back to class.
But only a week goes by before he's caught a new version of the flu, taking him out of class and back to his bed.
Unfortunately for the Colwells, online learning hasn’t proved to be a beneficial learning tool for their son.
“Online learning isn't viable for everyone, my son has special needs. He has an individual education plan so there are other issues that are coming into play,” he added.
Adding insult to injury, Colwell was confused when the school board began questioning him on why his son is not attending class, despite knowing the reason for the absences.
It's school board policy to send a social worker to the home of any child who has missed a certain amount of days to make sure the reasons are valid.
“This just seems like an unnecessary and invasive step,” Colwell said. “We didn't ask for our child to get sick, we don't want him at home, we want him at school.”
The school board says they are doing everything they can to keep children in school and acknowledge how difficult the past few years have been.
“The Waterloo Region District School Board's (WRDSB) top priority is the health and safety of their students and staff,” said Estefanía Brandenstein, communications officer for WRDSB.
“In addition to the enhanced safety measures we followed the past school year, such as cleaning and hand washing, we recommended that staff, students and visitors continue to self-screen every day before attending school.”
The WRDSB says it has made significant improvements to ventilation and filtration systems, including upgrades to ventilation infrastructure, deployment of standalone HEPA filter units and other ventilation devices.
They also highly encourage masking when inside to reduce the transmission of germs and illness. Masks are provided by the schools to any staff or students who would like one.
Emma Jose is in a similar situation. Her oldest daughter is in kindergarten and is experiencing the same revolving door effect; her child goes to school and gets sick, gets better and then repeats the process.
“I find this year has been extremely hard,” Jose said. “My daughter has been sick every other week. We just returned last week on Wednesday after three weeks off on antibiotics and on Friday she came home with a fever and flu/cold symptoms again.”
Luckily, Jose is a stay-at-home mom and is not missing any work because of it. She sympathizes with those who are left with the choice of staying home with their child and losing money, or sending their sick kid to school.
“Speaking with other parents and peers it seems like employers aren't as understanding as we would hope,” Jose said. “Because of this, parents are giving their kids tylenol and sending them on their way, so the cycle doesn't stop because they can't afford to keep them home.
While Jose doesn’t have to make the hard decision to send her sick child to school, she is facing another dilemma.
In February, Jose is expected to give birth and fears with her daughter's constant illness, it could transfer to the new baby and present complications to their health.
“I am considering pulling her out of school out of fear my newborn will get RSV or an illness passed around in school,” she said.
“We've been told this is normal because she didn't build her immunity in daycare as JK was her first exposure to a classroom environment, but it's still frustrating because it seems to be all the kids in her class in rotation.”
Cambridge Memorial Hospital is seeing an all time record for RSV and respiratory illnesses this year. The hospital is constantly running over capacity and currently has no more pediatric beds available.
CMH spokesperson Stephan Beckhoff said the scene at the Cambridge hospital is mirrored in other emergency departments across Waterloo Wellington.
Every hospital is dealing with a shortage of beds, especially in the pediatric units and are experiencing long wait times in EDs.
“People are coming into hospital very sick, our adult and paediatric inpatient units are full, 100 per cent,” Beckhoff added.
For those experiencing cold, flu or COVID like symptoms, he recommends booking an appointment at the new regionally operated COVID, cold and flu Care Clinic at 50 Sportsworld Dr. in Kitchener. This clinic is run by Grand River Hospital and serves all of Waterloo Region.
Parents like Jose and Colwell just want to see their children back in school after missing so much time due to the Pandemic.
“It's exhausting, I just want my kids to be healthy and this seems to be never ending,” Jose said.
“If your kids are sick, please keep them at home. You never know who can get sick and pass it on. Some parents like myself are the only income to our families, we cannot afford to get sick and miss days of work,” Colwell said.