Photo Credit: Geek Philosopher
So, I haven’t written about the school for a while.
Mostly because everything was going on track, or got fixed appropriately.
Until yesterday.
Jamey had been running an ultra low grade fever – about 99. One dose of ibuprofen or tylenol and he was back at it. No problem. Not sick enough to go to the doctor, and not sick enough to stay home.
Fine, fine.
I go out to the driveway to get Jamey from the bus. His afternoon bus driver is a sweet lady. She tells me that Jamey had a fever at school and he can’t come back for 24 hrs.
Huh?
Why is the bus driver giving me this information? I checked his bag, and no note from the nurse.
Phone broke? Nope, getting calls. I even had my neighbor call and check.
Did they call CJ and he was busy? Nope, husband didn’t get a call.
I shot a quick email to his teacher asking for clarification and expressing my confusion. You can see it here.
I get Jamey settled with his cup, a clean diaper and his favorite show (Little Einsteins this week) and the phone rings.
It’s the nurse. With attitude. Oh, goody.
She tried to call me. I didn’t answer. She dialed the wrong number for my husband. His number is something like 1334 and she dialed 1834 instead. One digit off. Could be my handwriting, could be her. Not sure. Apparently, it wasn’t enough of an emergency to pull his care card which has the numbers again, as well as an additional emergency contact. Of course it wasn’t. He only had a “fever” of 99.5. Not exactly life threatening.
When I asked her why she didn’t send a note, she got even more hostile. Telling the classroom aide to tell the bus driver was apparently good enough in her book.
Not in mine. If she knew at 9 am that he was running a temp, she had over an hour to get a note written. An hour and 45 minutes to be exact.
Finally, I’m done listening to her condescension and I hang up after a brief “Okay, thanks, bye.” Because if I hadn’t gotten off the phone, it wouldn’t have been pretty. I’ve got an attitude, and I know it. But what I don’t have? Is the patience for an employee of the district where I pay school taxes to insult me and talk down to me.
I shot an email off to the principal, which you can see here. Here is her response, almost 24 hrs later. I have removed all identifying information, except mine. Cause I don’t care. 
Y’all know where to find me.
I’m ticked. HIPAA covers the school because they’re a Medicaid provider. I’m not sure why it covers the bus driver, though. She had no burning need to know (burning, fever, I’m so punny today). A fever of 99.5 isn’t even a real fever.
I called the district today and spoke to the admin for one of the assistant superintendents. I don’t even know right now.
I do know that I don’t want this “nurse” treating my nonverbal kid though. If she’s got this much of a problem being professional, her treatment comes under suspicion.
I’ll keep you updated!
Kristin
About the Author: Kristin Holt Duncan is a Houston area extreme couponer. She enjoys saving money on the foods that her family actually likes so that she can spend more money on things like Nutella. And Danskos. And Coach purses. You can find her elsewhere on the web, below.
