A Sixth Open Letter to the School District

Dear folks in charge of the decision making down at the School District,

As a reminder, we are on school day 292 of our 14-day quarantine to flatten the COVID curve, and I wanted to write again to let you know that apparently, all trust has been lost between us. Which is weird, because our relationship is predicated on me trusting you to educate my children, so I would have thought there would be an equal reciprocal trust on your end toward me, but I guess not.

I received an email last night from one of the high school coaches, relaying a message he had received from the Athletic Director. Since spring has sprung here in California, allergy season is ramping up quickly.

Here’s the note from the AD:

With allergy season upon us, if your athletes have a runny nose/red eyes/etc. they will be sent home from school and quarantined if nothing is in their file regarding allergies. I would encourage them to have their parents call the school nurse and get their allergies logged into their health profile.

Now, I realize that common sense is a 2019 thing, so I won’t take up any of your time with my thoughts on the insanity of quarantining a kid whose only symptom is itchy eyes and is standing there telling you they have allergies.

I discovered our trust had evaporated when I followed the AD’s advice this morning and phoned the school to update Son Number One’s health profile because he does, in fact, have allergies.

I was told that there was no possible way they could update his health profile based on my word alone, and they would need a note from the doctor to confirm that he really, truly does have seasonal allergies.

Umm…

We here at the house have been providing his direct and total care since he first saw the light of day. That has been sixteen years, now. I can assure you we are not pumping him full of Zyrtec and Flonase because we love spending the money on it.

I’m not 100% sure why you think I should trust you implicitly with the education of my children if you are unwilling to trust me as a parent on the simple fact that pollen really irritates my oldest son’s nasal passages. That seems “fairly academic,” to put it in school terms.

Since we give him what we out here in the real world call “over-the-counter” medication for his seasonal allergies that did not need official medical diagnosis here in the central valley of California, where seasonal allergies were invented, I can’t provide a doctor’s note in this instance.

Being as such, I thought I’d take this opportunity to alert you of some other possible non-officially-diagnosed situations that might arise with my boys while they are at school.

Son Number One swims and plays water polo, so occasionally in the pool he will cough. The non-official term for this is “choking on a bunch of water.” This is not COVID related.

Son Number Two plays lacrosse on a turf field. When he falls on that field while running, he can get what we call “turf burns” on his knees, elbows, etc. These rashes will be red and angry looking, but rest assured they are harmless and non-communicable.

All three of my sons tend to sneeze when exposed to clouds of dust or pepper. This reaction is a natural bodily function, I’ve been told, so no need for alarm or any quarantining in those situations.

Son Number Three also plays lacrosse, but in a hilarious turn of events, does not enjoy running. He is also quite dramatic, as seventh graders can be, so after a practice, game, or workout, he tends to fake limp around to let you know how much effort he gave and that it is almost killing him. This limp, real or for show, is not a sign of muscle cramping due to COVID or any other current pandemic disease we are employing to keep kids out of your hair.

All three of my boys will occasionally become very thirsty. This is because they are teenagers who forget to drink water regularly, not a sign of illness-born dehydration. You can just point them toward the nearest drinking fountain that you have shut off because drinking fountains don’t spread diseases, but better safe than sorry.

Speaking of thirst, it’s about to get hot again here in the Golden State. Since my boys play sports and compete outside, they do tend to warm up a tad when the mercury starts rising. I know you are all armed with handy touchless thermometers, but be aware they might register a little on the warm side when out in the blazing sun. Remember, 98.7 is not cause for quarantining. In fact, if they are below 103, please send then for another lap.

Lastly, with regard to my last letter to you folks, you have been handing out some pretty questionable “food” in your free grab-n-go lunches. (And by “free,” I obviously mean they will be paid for by my grandchildren’s grandchildren, at this point.) Please be aware that as teenage boys, my sons will eat anything you hand them. Due to their teenage metabolism, they are in a perpetual state of near-starvation no matter how much food we give them, so please don’t take their willingness to eat the highly processed, should-be-illegal-in-schools crap you are handing them as a sign of any lost sense of smell or taste. They are just boys.

I hope that we can someday build back the trust that we’ve lost between us, but the ball is squarely in your court on that one. I look forward to you taking my word unconditionally on the health and safety of my own children in the very near future. That would be neat, wouldn’t it?

Yours in educational excellence through continued partnership,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

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HIPAA Critical, Part II

Does anyone have the number for the idiot or idiots over at HIPAA that I can send my gas receipt to? I just had to drive across town to Son Number One’s pediatrician for a special office visit so that he could get his own health care web access all set up... you know, because he’s twelve now.

When you turn twelve these days, at least in California, you’re medically independent. For everything except the bill, that is. The bill they still send to me, even though I’m not allowed access to his medical records anymore. Funny how those HIPAA folks made a nice loophole for actually collecting the money and all.

Why did I have to drive all the way across town? Well, they want to make it so the twelve-year-old has their own personal user name and password-protected access to your health care plan’s website, but ironically, you can’t set that up on the website. You have to physically go to the doctor’s office and bring the actual twelve-year-old with you, so they can repeatedly ask why they had to come if they’re not having an appointment. Do you know why you, as the parent, have to go, too? Because twelve-year-olds CAN’T DRIVE, that’s why!

As if this galactically stupid monumental waste of our time is not asinine enough, the poor doctor’s assistant, who has approximately two bazillion better things to be doing, has to go through the ridiculous process of showing the twelve-year-old all the fun features of the new website he now has access to. The guy actually tried to show my son how to set up an appointment. My son and I looked at the guy with the exact same blank stare.

My stare meant, “Are you being $#&%’ing serious right now?”

My son’s stare probably meant, “Can I change the background image to a dragon?”

Prior to that, the guy had actually asked my twelve-year-old what he wanted his user name and password to be. Here’s how that would have gone if I hadn’t been in the room:

“What would you like your user name and password to be?”

“Huh?”

“Your user name. Right here. What do you want it to say?”

“I get to choose??”

“Yes.”

“Cool! Make it FlamingNinjaDeathRay.”

“All right. How about a password?”

“I dunno.”

“It has to have at least one number or character.”

“OK. Make it FlamingNinjaDeathRay2000##**##.”

“All right. You’re all set.”

Thirty seconds later

Me – “What happened in there?”

Son – “I got a website.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I have a user name and password.”

“OK. What are they?”

“SamuraiDeathFlame, or something.”

“Is that the user name or the password?”

“I dunno. I’m hungry.”

Since I was in the room, we now have a user name and password that one of us will remember. Now my big grown-up twelve-year-old can finally take charge of his health care, as it was always meant to be. I logged on for him when we got home. (Don’t tell HIPAA.)

While I was on his amazing new health care web access portal – which looks exactly like the one I have, just conspicuously without the ‘Bill Pay’ option – I noticed that the doctor’s office had two online forms that they wanted my medically-independent son to fill out, since they sent them to his new account that I’m not allowed to have access to.

The first questionnaire started like this:

Please answer the following questions. It will help your clinicians spend more time discussing those specific issues that concern you.

Please list all medications, vitamins, inhalers or supplements your child is currently taking:

Actual answer – None

What his answer would have been – I don’t understand any of those words.

Please list your child's medication or food allergies, if any:

Actual answer – None

What his answer would have been – Cough syrup, peanuts, cauliflower, mayonnaise, carrots, and celery.

Has your child had any major medical problems since his or her last check up?

Actual answer – No

What his answer would have been – I have a wart on my toe and my dad is freezing it off and it hurts like crazy when he puts the cold thing on it, but I don’t know when my last checkup was and I don’t know when I got the wart and I also skinned my knee really bad playing kickball.

At that point I stopped reading the questionnaire, deleted it, and went ahead and changed his password without telling him.

I’ll bet you folks at HIPAA never saw that one coming. I’ll send you the gas receipt. And just so we’re clear, you can reimburse me, not my son.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

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Whoops, We HIPAA'd your TDaP

I’m confused, California. I just want to make sure I’m perfectly clear on what’s happening here...

I have a son in the sixth grade, attending a public school in our great state of California. Next year, if we’ve paid off the right people, he will go on to the seventh grade. Our public school district, operating in and under the authority of our great state of California just sent me, his parent, a notice about his immunization requirements for school. What?

The letter starts like this:

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, continues to threaten students in California. To help stop its spread, all incoming 7^th graders are required by law to have proof of a whooping cough booster (TDaP) vaccine, or file an exemption, in order to attend classes this year. Students will not be allowed to attend classes without an immunization or medical exemption signed by a physician.

Then you guys ask me, his parent, to please submit an immunization record for him. You see, this is the part that confuses me. He’s twelve, for goodness sake. You know he’s twelve because you know his birthdate, and you’re in charge of teaching him algebra, so I assume you guys can also do birthday math. So why are you sending this letter to me?

Don’t you remember the letter that your HIPAA folks sent me a few months ago when he turned twelve? Do your HIPAA people and your school district people not talk to each other over there?

How in the world am I supposed to tell you anything about his immunization record? Your HIPAA department just informed me that I don’t have access to his medical records anymore now that he’s all grown up, being twelve and all.

By the way, how old are your HIPAA people over there? I have to assume they’re all over one hundred and fifty years old. Is that why you chose the ripe old age of twelve? Because the people writing these laws are all from the good old days when everyone left the farm at twelve to get a job and needed to prove to their new employers that all their liniments, tonics, and salves against consumption and winter fever were up to date?

Anyway, if you want to know about his immunizations, you’ll obviously need to talk to him. Which leads me to the next thing I’m curious about. Are you just tired of having anyone over the age of twelve attend school?

Students will not be allowed to attend classes without an immunization or medical exemption signed by a physician.

So, in case you’re slow on the uptake, let me recap this for you. You told the twelve-year-olds that their parents aren’t in charge of their medical decisions anymore. Then you told them that they have to do a medical thing or they can’t go to class. So, what you did there was tell twelve-year-olds that they are now in charge of deciding whether to go to school or not.

I would assume you school district folks have met twelve-year-olds before. You must see the problem here. Or do all your old-timey HIPAA people just want them to go get jobs? I can’t figure you guys out.

Speaking of that, there’s one more thing in this letter that I can’t figure out. I don’t mean to get all logical on you or anything, but you started the letter by saying that whooping cough continues to threaten students in California. Then you said to help stop its spread, students are required to have proof of a vaccine, or file an exemption?

So, just so I’m clear, one of the ways you plan to stop the spread of whooping cough is by collecting vaccine exemption letters? Was there even a meeting on this, or does Phil in the back cubicle just write down whatever the hell comes into his head and then sends it out to the parents?

Again, not to get all logical on you, but the only way that makes any sense is if the non-vaccinated kids are required to carry their exemption letters with them at all times to hold in front of their faces when they cough. Since my twelve-year-old regularly forgets to carry anything that isn’t physically attached to him, I don’t see that plan working.

Anyway, good luck getting my son’s vaccination records from him. He doesn’t know the name of his doctor, the name of his doctor’s medical practice, the name of our insurance provider, his insurance plan number, the telephone number to any of the aforementioned offices, the fact that he even has a vaccination record, or the name of his school district.

Basically he knows the name of his school and the exact time of each recess.

But I think everything will work out fine, you know, because he’s twelve now.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

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Nursing School

My kids only have two more weeks of school left and I am not happy about it. Actually, they only have one more real week of school since the “last day” is the Thursday after the Memorial Day holiday. With no school on Monday, and an all-school field day on Tuesday, Wednesday will be filled with movies and games, and the last day is a half day, so it doesn’t even count.

Although, the one “real week” we have left isn’t really much of a week. The Friday before the Memorial Day weekend is a total write-off, and we have a couple minimum days in there too. Basically we’re in the elementary school equivalent of the last two weeks of your job before your official retirement date. You still show up to the office, but nothing productive is going to happen.

I’m not concerned with the lack of education that will occur in the next two weeks. I’m concerned, as always, about them being home all the time. School is very helpful to me. When they’re in school I can get things done. When they’re home they always want stuff.

“Dad, can we go to the park?”

“Dad, can we go to the pool?”

“Dad, can we play inside since it’s 105 degrees out?”

“Dad, can you feed us food?”

“Dad, can you come out of your office?”

“Dad?...”

“Dad, where are you?”

That’s going to get even more annoying if they ever find my hiding spot. I wish they would bug their mom for stuff but she’s a high school teacher, so during the summer months she automatically gets the better hiding spot.

Besides being in charge of them for the entire day, the main thing I’m concerned with as the school year draws to a close is the lack of medical notes I’ll get over the summer. Elementary schools are very good at notifying you of the dangers posed to your children by everyday life. I have a stack of “information letters” here on my desk just from the last few weeks.

How am I supposed to know if my children were exposed to hand-foot-and-mouth disease over the summer if I never receive a warning letter? Or conjunctivitis? Or fifth disease, whatever the hell that is.

“Son Number One has a cough.”

“How are we supposed to know what it might be? It’s July! We have no letters!”

And head lice. Don’t even get me started on head lice. Although, we tend to shear our boys like sheep over the summer, so that one shouldn’t be a problem.

It’s the absence of the head injury form that I’m most worried about. Son Number Three’s head comes into contact with hard objects, including other heads, so often that the school nurse has me on speed dial. She called the other day and didn’t even tell me who it was. She just said, “I’ll give you one guess why I’m calling.”

As she was handing him yet another concussion form to take home, he asked her, amazed, “How many of these forms do you have?”

The problem is he’s a little squirrelly when it comes to giving us information. (Possibly because he’s eight years old, possibly because of all the head injuries, probably a little of both.) I’m just not confident that over the summer I’m going to hear about every collision involving his head and a solid object. I can easily see a scenario where he’ll be playing down the street, collide with a parked car or a tree, knock himself completely out, wake up, cry for a while, see a butterfly, forget he’s hurt, chase the butterfly for two minutes, then tell me about it a week later.

I guess I’ll just have to hang on to one of these head injury notification letters for the summer and go through the concussion symptom awareness protocols every night just to be safe.

On the plus side, the short hair helps with more than just head lice. It makes it pretty easy to spot the goose eggs, too.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

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Fall for the Head Fake

My cell phone rang on my desk the other day, and my heart immediately sank when I saw the name on the screen. It was my boys’ school. Just great! One of them probably threw up, or more likely, set something on fire, and now I have to stop my work day and go pick them up.

“Hello?”

“Yes, Mr. Schmatjen, this is the school nurse. We have Son Number Three here in the office. He hit his head on the big giant brick wall out in the middle of the playground, but he’s fine.”

Yes! Just a head injury. My day is saved! “Well, I’m relieved to hear he’s OK.”

“Yes, he’s fine. It’s just school policy to call home whenever there’s a head injury.”

Wow. How do I not get more calls? That kid’s head is a magnet for hard objects. “Well, that sounds like a very good policy. So, just to be clear, it sounds like what you're telling me is this isn't going to affect my day at all?”

“Uh... No, I guess not. Again, he appears to be just fine.”

Hmm... Perhaps I should sound more concerned. “Well, as long as both his pupils are the same size, go ahead and kick his little butt back in the direction of his classroom.”

“Uh... Yes, he’s not showing any signs of serious injury. We’ll send him back to class. There will be a note coming home with him today. Again, just school policy.”

“Great. I’ll be sure to read that. Thanks, gotta go.”

“Uh... Would you like to talk to your son? Mr. Schmatjen? Sir?”

*Dial tone*

By the time I went to pick the boys up after school was out, I had forgotten all about the morning’s head vs. wall incident. It wasn’t until we were all home for an hour or so that I got around to looking through their folders.

School District Health Services Head Injury Letter

“Oh, yeah. Hey, buddy, how’s your head?”

“It’s OK. But I threw up in class today.”

*sound in my head of record scratching to a halt*

“You did what now? Before or after you hit your head?"

"After."

"Hang on, buddy. I need to read something."

School District Health Services Head Injury Letter

Since symptoms of a concussion may occur within 24 hours, we feel it is important for parents to have the following information:

OBSERVATION

Children should be kept under observation for the next 24 hours. The child should be encouraged toward quiet activities during the observation period.

Hmm... So screaming up and down the street on his scooter right after school wasn’t the right call?

TREATMENT

Apply ice for 1 hour to relieve pain and swelling.

We’ll call that one taken care of, more or less.

Give only clear liquids until no vomiting for at least 6 hours.

Well... He just ate a burrito when he got home from school, so I’m going to have to say I failed on this one.

Keep him awake for the first hour or so, after which time he may sleep if he want to. Awaken him every 4 hours to see if he is arousable, recognizes his parents, and to see if his pupils are equal size.

Well, he doesn’t seem sleepy, but I can tell you right now I won’t be able to wake him up if he does go to sleep. He’s the hardest sleeper we have. On any given night I can pick him up, slap him, and roll him down the stairs without waking him up. So how am I supposed to know if he’s normal or concussed?

I guess we could try to keep him up past his bed time, but that will end up being a problem with about half of this list of symptoms. Specifically:

Unconsciousness, “in a daze”, or unable to awaken child

Inability to recognize familiar people or objects

Slurred speech

Double vision

Staggering gait or loss of coordination

Every one of those things happens to him if he stays up even an hour past his bed time. So, I can’t let him go to sleep, and I can’t keep him awake. What now?

“Why didn’t the school call me again when you threw up?”

“Oh, it was just a little. I was bending over like this right after lunch, and I burped, and a little came out. It wasn’t a real throw up.”

*sound of School District Health Services Head Injury Letter crumpling up*

“Go ride your scooter some more while I make you another burrito. Don’t forget your helmet!”

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!