インフルエンザのおかげで

Today after lunch one of the two first grade classes got to go home early. They have tomorrow and Wednesday off as well.

The reason - influenza.

Six kids in that class alone were out with the flu, and a few others were showing some pretty heavy symptoms. Turns out there's kind of an unwritten rule (maybe it is written somewhere) that when about 1/3 of a class is absent or showing signs of illness that class gets effectively quarantined for a few days in order to prevent it from spreading to other classes. For the kids who are sick it's nice they can recover and not worry about having to catch up on a bunch of missed lessons. For the kids who aren't sick, well, they're just rolling in a few free days off school. The kids who it sucks most for is the other class of first graders. For them, the next few days is business as usual. Nothing they can do, but hang their heads in disappointment as they walk past the neighbouring classroom thinking "If only it could have been us."