I teach at a tiny private school in a very affluent neighborhood. Many, if not most of my students and their families went on out-of-state trips during the week of Thanksgiving. According to our school's (and the state's) Covid protocols, any student who is not completely vaccinated needs to self-quarantine for at least one week after returning from out-of-state. If people were following the rules, I'd have fewer than ten students in one of my 6th grade classes. However, I have nearly perfect attendance today. It's so difficult not to call out students who I know are unvaccinated and have traveled out of state, who are putting their classmates, their other teachers, and me at risk for whatever variant of Covid they've picked up from whatever resort they visited over break. My admin, of course, is looking the other way - they wouldn't dare upset the parents by enforcing protocol during an ongoing global pandemic.

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It absolutely enrages me that these privileged parents think the rules apply to everyone BUT them. Our school is so flippant about Covid protocol in the first place, and now there's no consequence for parents who are not only lying themselves, but instructing their own children to lie to their teachers so they don't have to stay at home to quarantine. With any luck, we'll be shut down before Christmas. This is getting absurd.