Swine Flu Precautions for Your Preschool!

By Kelly Mayberry

Childcare location across the country are looking for ways to manage the H1N1 virus before they reach pandemic proportions. The Center for Disease Control is working closely with the National Association of Education of Young People to protect children at many child care and day care facilities throughout the United States.

The best way to be prepared is to sanitize everything possible to prevent the spread of an outbreak before it starts. Brilliance Preschool and Academy makes sure that every single toy is cleaned and sanitized at the end of each and every day. As every early childhood education center should, the academy goes above and beyond normal practices to insure a germ-free environment. The operators understand that the health and safety of your child should be their number one priority.

Schools should follow the published guides by the CDC on how to protect their student body. Anyone who handles children under the age of five years of age are encouraged to get vaccinated; since this age group has the highest risk levels for the H1NI virus. See if your child's school has plans to have all their staff members receive their shots. It would also be wise to check with your pediatrician to see if your child needs to be vaccinated.

The CDC also recommends that all preschools have an emergency plan in place in case there is an outbreak of swine flu in the building. The plan should include provisions to immediately notify all parents and that communication should advise parents that it is essential to keep students home if they begin to display flu like symptoms. The CDC reports that the "symptoms of 2009 H1N1 flu virus can include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue, and sometimes diarrhea and vomiting."

When you visit your preschool you should see posters around the building encouraging the children to practice good hygiene. Materials are available from the government and the NAEYP free of charge, which reinforce the importance of hand washing and covering the nose and mouth when sneezing. Despite the best efforts of any school it still may become necessary at some point to close to control any outbreak. The CDC says if too many children or staff members become ill the best course of action will be to shutdown for 5 to 7 days. - 30531

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College Students Lifestyles in the New Millennium

By Adriana Noton

What are the college students' lifestyles like in this new millennium? For that matter, how has the college students' lifestyle changed since the year 2000?

I was on a university campus a few years ago and all the students walked around with a cell phone glued to their head. Today it is all about texting the person sitting next to you I would guess.

Yesterday a major university in California experienced a peaceful protest. Students, angry about a rate in public education tuition locked arms and blocked the door exits to the board or regents who were meeting on campus. Listen, if kids want to protest that is their business but it seems the only thing that riles these college students these days is when the state raises tuition.

I remember a bill board off the freeway out here a few years ago. It was a photo of two young people a boy and a girl. The girl was wearing a head band and a tie die t-shirt like a grateful dead head concert hanger on.

She was sitting on the shoulders of a young guy similarly dressed. He was shouting something and she was shouting with her fist in the air, the headline read fight for your right to free checking. It was an ad taken out by a bank advertising checking accounts without service fees.

These were models of course posing for the advertising agency connected to the bank. And it was a bit of a joke of using people who looked like sixties rebels to advertise for the bank. But college students are more concerned these days with their bank accounts than with changing the world as college kids back in the sixties were.

This is not a knock against the college students of today. It is never too early to worry about your income and how you are going to make a living. But when there is a war in the middle east; the government changing our health care system against the will of the people; when the government is using tax payer money to bail out the banks which regularly practice usury credit lending practices by increasing interest rates on existing credit balances, sometimes tripling the rates on their whim, we seem not to hear much of a protest from college students.

But when the college students lifestyles are hit in their pocket book they are sure to rally and make their voices heard. What they do not know is that those who raise their tuition have one response. They say if you do not like it then do not go to school here. College students today do not realize that when it comes to money there will always be someone who can afford tuition if they cannot. Step aside if you all you want to do is whine. When you learn that protesting is about the rights of others and not yourselves perhaps your arm locking will get you more than a two minute story on the five o'clock news. - 30531

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