One day a few weeks ago I was dining in the school lunchroom when a kid a table over suddenly began vomiting just as a first grade teacher was striding into the room to collect her class. She veered from her original course and, as she’d already been moving, arrived at the scene of the trouble before anyone else. From behind, she put one hand under each armpit of the puker and lifted him out of there before too much more could drip into his lap. Then she stood guard over the puddle, holding one small and possibly contaminated hand, until reinforcements arrived. All in a day’s work. If you’d like to see her in less trying circumstances:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1580063246528085
Crazy, crazy times at Ms. Fultz’s school, Valley View Elementary in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. Even before our pre-k student was nabbed by ICE–what a relief to get him and his bunny-eared stocking cap off the streets!–attendance had dropped precipitously. Parents are supposed to call in if their kid is going to be absent, and if they don’t, someone from the school office calls them. Consequently we knew that out of fear people were staying home instead of prosecuting their normal routines, which had included delivering their kids to Valley View in the morning and picking them up in the afternoon. To boost attendance, school staff have volunteered to walk kids back and forth, morning and afternoon. I guess there are legal reasons district employees can’t drive kids in their cars, but with the permission of parents, we can walk with them. I often see a group when I’m getting close to school in the morning. They go from house to house picking up kids, their number slowly accruing until they have everyone, and then they walk to school together.
I believe there are like six neighborhood zones, times five days in a week, morning and afternoon, so about 60 shifts per week. All slots are filled by a volunteer, people like Ms. Fultz. It adds an hour to the work day, it’s cold out, the eastern sky just brightening in the a.m., and they need a plan for what to do if harassed, or worse, by agents of their own federal government.
On the theory that laughter is good medicine for surviving life in Dystopia:
Eric the Blue 
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