Tuesday, June 3, 2008

On Working From Home: A Scary School Day

My children are too young to be in our public school system yet. Right now as a working mom, my biggest worry has been carpooling for my son's preschool, making sure we bring in a snack when it's our turn, and making time for parent/teacher meetings. Easy.

Our village's schools have always had a wonderful reputation. I subscribe to our village billboard on Yahoo! to keep posted on the village goings-on, and today's email was full of news about a scare at our middle school (so was my TV screen tonight with the local news). It seems as if a student had posted something online (a blog) that was a threat toward one or two specific children and the school in general. The middle school was evacuated. Btw, it should be noted that it's social studies state testing day.

Worse, it's the child of a school board member. As I have had no experience with any of the related parties, I'll reserve judgment until I hear more of the facts. Truthfully, no matter what your position, this must be a horrible thing to go through as the child's parent.

With that said, I am relieved that my employer is in such close proximity to our home, and I have the ability to to work from home regularly. While O isn't in the elementary school yet, I can't imagine the feelings I would experience upon getting a call about such a situation, and be far away. I know I can get to him in 15 minutes at worst.

And people wonder why parents give children cell phones at such a young age. The school couldn't really communicate with parents until they had all the facts, so many parents were upset about the lack of contact. At least the parents were getting texts from the kids...though in many cases I am sure that exacerbated the panic.

Makes me all the more motivated to figure out how to work from home as much as possible. The world has changed quite a bit since I was in middle school.

2 comments:

Kwana said...

What a mess it all was. Very scary especially for the younger students. Sad all around. I hope for healing. I often think of things like this since I now work from home. It;s very hard being away from your kids.

pve design said...

After 9/11 the world is a different place and we all need to be the change to bring peace to our communities, our kids and our hearts.
I remember being in high school and there was a tornado that came through. Somehow Mother Nature seems calm compared to some of the scary school happenings these days.