Originally published on January 27, 2021 9:59 am
Diana Muhammad, who teaches PE and dance in Chicago Public Schools, was "unsure," "uncertain" and "reluctant" about her district's plan for in-person classes starting Monday. At a Chicago Teachers Union press conference earlier this month, she said the plan felt "rushed." And then things got really scary.
"Over the winter break, my life was devastated when my daughter, who was sick with various symptoms all over the place for an entire week, woke up one morning and could not see."
Her daughter ended up in intensive care for a week, she said. It turned out to be a case of multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C. That's an extremely rare, and very dangerous, complication of COVID-19 found in children, particularly in Black and Latino children. Noting this disparate impact, and the fact that Chicago Public School students are about 90% nonwhite, Muhammad said, "Now I am seriously concerned about us rushing back without having a well-thought-out plan."