STEVENSVILLE, Mont. (AP) - About 90 elementary school students in Montana have started a series of rabies shots after a parent let them touch a dead bat that was later confirmed to be diseased.The mother of two students gave presentations in five classrooms and allowed the kids to touch the dead bat last week. She offered each student who touched the bat a sanitary wipe.
The exposed students will receive six shots of anti-rabies vaccine. Stevensville Elementary School officials say they will use liability insurance to pay up to $70,000 for the exposed children to be vaccinated. The overall cost could surpass $150,000.
The school has since set a policy requiring that anyone visiting the school obtain a visitor pass.
What kind of idiot would let any kid get near a rabid bat, I wondered.
Then I saw the location, and it all became clear. Montana...the place where you can have a whole lot of fun, but geeze, know when to draw the line. Hugely amounts of highly flammable fireworks? You bet. Young children running around holding burning punks in the dark? No problem. Guns sized for the younger set for target practice? Cliff jumping? ATVs? Bring it on.
But for crying out loud...there are limits. Even in Montana.
Actually, my favorite part of the whole article is the last sentence. Montana is full of small towns where everyone knows everyone and a person might be hard pressed to sneak into anywhere in most towns. But I think it can't be too-careful Minnesota that is the only one with the whole "visitor's pass" idea when it comes to schools. But of course, this wasn't a stranger--it was a mother of two of the kids. Maybe it's not so much the whole visitor pass idea--I wonder if she would have written "bringing potentially life-threatening diseases-riddled carcass to show-n-tell" on that sign in sheet. Maybe they need to start patting people down for suspicious biological dangers. Maybe they could get a bat-sniffing dog or something. What they should do is post her picture in the local bars to encourage further discussion about the issue. I think that would be more effective.
And hey--where was the teacher? The mom gave 5 presentations--didn't ANY teacher say, "um, not such a good idea?" The longer I write the more professional staff development opportunities I see here.
3 comments:
This is just... I don't know. I don't understand it. Encouraging kids to touch a DEAD BAT? You know how totally on the bandwagon I am with the whole dangerous fun idea. But taking dead bats into school purposely so that kids can TOUCH them?! There is a bat problem in our church building in Maine. One morning we went to church there, seven bats were found in the building and disposed of. Once, after church, all the kids swarmed around a baby bat who was on the ground outside, not moving much. Even adults in Maine knew to say, "Get away from that bat! It could have rabies!" Geez. One crazy lady is one thing, but what about all the teachers?
It was one of mom's basic rules to play outside by - don't touch dead things. Or things that are almost dead things. If you can catch up with something wild and touch it, it's probably because it's diseased. Over & over & over we heard that! I'm sure the mom in Stevensville was from California. She did NOT grow up like we did. Darwinism at work again.
Hee hee. I can just picture your mom saying that, Sarah. You know, we'd probably have found something and then made your brother touch it or something. Remember when we used to make him kiss your dog when we did pretend weddings? Poor guy--he wanted to play with us so badly that he'd pretty much do anything.
Uh-oh, maybe we scarred him...
He's the only other Cameron I've known besides my own.
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