Hello I live in maryland College park to be more specific one of my neighbors just came back from mexico and her wife and my sister have flu I do not know if is regular flu or swine flu I pray good for this to be a regular flu but the problem is that my sister takes care of my girls when I am at work and I can't find a solution on how to handle work if nobody takes care of my girls I am a single mother and if I do not work how I am going to pay the rent and food, medicines I we need them or how to keep my girls away from other people when you need to do the laundry and have to take them with you for groceries you can't leave the alone what about when the are bore and don't want to play with their toys or the are tired of watching tv we do not know how long this swine flu will take to go away or to be cure it could be months and remembe kids are almost done with the school year. as you can see there is no answer to your questions. we can keep them busy but no for too long.

It is parents like that who promote the spread of illnesses such as the human flu or even the common cold. If the threat of the H1N1 virus is severe enough for the governor to deem it necessary to close schools, then we should be grateful that uninfected children have a chance to remain that way. The last time a strain of this flu broke out, nearly 50 million people worldwide were killed. Shouldn't we be doing everything we can to prevent that this time around? Parents who work should be less concerned with paid time when it is their childs' lives we are talking about.

It is better to be safe than sorry.

As a teacher and a parent I understand the dilema the closing of school has on parents,however, I learned early on if I wanted to work and have children I had to have a back-up plan. If nothing else good comes out of this, maybe everyone will realize that having and raising children requires tough choices and alternative plans of action. When you have children, always expect the unexpected and be prepared!

Well, I'm a student at RHS and most of us do have a problem with the closing of schools. I mean, us older kids can deal without seeing our friends, we have FaceBook and Twitter and such, but yeah, we are mainly annoyed that MCPS is OVERREACTING, it's not as bad as they are making it out to be and shutting the schools for two weeks is not going to help, for as you said, parents can't take care of their children all the time, especially when they have work; school is there for a reason, no? Another stupid thing that has happened because of the closings is that this is the time RIGHT before AP/SAT/HSA/Final tests and most kids needed yesterday at school for some last minute questions for the AP test, some of us just wanted help studying since finals are in a little over a month. MCPS is just ruining the whole schedule and now kids are going to be missing school, that's not so bad for the elementary schools, but for high school, missing more than two or three days with no learning is going to be disastrous for test scores and just overall for learning in general.

To control an encroaching pandemic, limiting contacts between people along with handwashing and coughing into a tissue can control the spread of disease. This is a departure from our normal routines, but it's necessary for health reasons. When inadvertantly exposed to a flu-carrier, we need to take precaution to prevent further spreading disease by submitting to unreasonable work expectations of attendance at any cost (if indeed that was actually the expection under which we are laboring). We need to use common sense and straight thinking.

Sounds like the perfect time to have "Bring Your Kid To Work Day."

personally if we did keep giving them mexicans the green cards and paying for there " non- necessities" we wouldn't be haveing this epidemic outbreak, how every i strongly belive that we need to take persist percautions and look out for the human population, it was said that the world was to end in 2012 lets not make it happen!

It's not a perfect time to "Bring your kid to work". The whole idea is to protect our children and ourselves. The flu is still contagious at the workplace. Yes, it creates a huge amount of problems for parents, especially single parents, but you must get your priorities straight. This is the reason you should have money in savings. I'd rather lose my job than my son.

Yes, would you rather more kids get sick, and then you get sick, and miss more work? The school system does not exist as a government baby sitter for your personal convenience. Health is a priority and back-up plans are necessary. It's reality.

I think we need to remember what the word pandemic means. It dosen't mean something that kills allot of people. It dosen't mean some terriable dangerous world ending disease. It just means that there is wide spread human to human transmition of the disease.

Seasonal Flu is a pandemic. When I was a kid Chicken Poxs was a pandemic. Both occasionally kill people. Schools don't close for it. So far in the US there has been one death of a 2 year old who may have had pre-existing resperatory problems. Why are we panicking? Most of the people who have gotten it here have recovered after staying home for a few days. Just like the regular flu. I think the school system is over reacting.

It dosen't even seem to be that contagious. The latest from the CDC says that 25% of people who LIVE WITH someone who has the H1N1 flu will catch it. That seems way low to me. Then again, the last time anyone in my house got sick it was with the roto virus from hell 3 years ago, and we all got it. Let me tell you. I would much rather get the swine flu then that again. Although Roto hell did make a great weight loss plan (8 pounds in 6 hours) it landed my then two year old in the hospital. Did schools close for that? No. Did kids die from it? Yes. Was it highly contagious? Yes. Some MCPS schools were looking at 30% absentee rates. So why are we panicking now?

Its important to remember that kids are more effected by this flu than we are and have a worst reaction to it. But still that dosent mean we have to strainedour self just remember wash your hand, stay away form people who are sick, and be carefull.

Since so many parents students, teachers of the high schools have cyber connections - This would be a perfect time for the techies to wire the schools and students and teachers so that the state Board of ED could sanctify an educational day away from the brick & mortar building. This would seem the most effective with the higher grades where the testing and each day missed is so important and the obvious is right in our students hands: cyber tools.

I would rather lose my job then my child. This is being treated as an intersection, calculating how many deaths before we decide to put up a traffic light. Those who worry about their jobs, daycare bills etc...might not have a child to worry about for too long. THIS IS YOUR DECISION. YOU ARE THE PARENT.WAKE UP AMERICA! THEY ARE KILLING OUR CHILDREN.