School Quarantine

Our school has been quarantined since Oct. 15th to try to prevent the spread of H1N1. You may wonder what this means.

I will give you a break down.

Basically, all local students who live in the dorms have not been allowed to leave the campus walls for almost two months, except in cases of emergency. Then the teacher must write the student a pass. Those students who live off campus, students who work, or international students, have a pass they show the school guards to get in and out of campus. Only students or teachers can get onto campus. To enter, all students and teachers must get their temperature read with infrared thermometer.

The students living on campus, must check their temperatures three times a day, and if they have a fever, they and the rest of their dorm mates are quarantined in the school hotel. In the beginning, many students were scaling over the walls to obtain freedom. Soon, the school threatened the students with withholding degrees if they are caught trying to escape. Therefore, the jumping over the walls slowed down.

Although the precautions may seem different, there has been very few cases of H1N1 at the school.

One sad thing is on a Friday or Saturday night, I see a lot of the students lined up near the fence talking to their friend, family, or loved one on the other side of the fence. Sometimes, I see a couple hold hands through the fence and looking longingly at each other with the look, "when can we finally be together?"

One happy thought is that since the school shortened the Oct. week long holiday for H1N1, we will be getting out in Dec. instead of Jan. this year to make up for the lost vacation days.