By Nancy Azzam
With temperatures unseasonably low in California and with this wave of winds, rains, and the occasional snowfall, many are sick with the flu or a cold or even just regular seasonal allergies.
The symptoms of flu or cold can include fever or chills, cough, sore throat, body aches, and most notably during this cold season, a runny or stuffy nose.
With this symptom of a runny nose, the need for tissues arises. Students are constantly rising out of their chairs in the middle of a lesson to go to the front of the room in search of them, but to their surprise, an empty box is all they most likely can find.
“Since it’s a colder season when people get sick more often, I think that tissues are a necessity, especially with many students sniffling in classrooms which can be distracting. With many students taking many tissues, they run out faster and leave other students without them,” sophomore Mikayla Enriquez said.
Tissues are a necessity during this time so students don’t resort to a sleeve or a rough paper towel, but they never seem to be in supply inside their classroom.
During the peak of Covid, teachers were able to order tissues as they did other personal protective equipment such as hand sanitizer and masks. Now that Covid is winding down, teachers must order their tissues from department chairs instead. They can take weeks to arrive.
Now, teachers and students are constantly hearing neverending sniffling in classrooms without the assistance of tissues. Some teachers have taken it into their own hands to supply tissues to their students to solve this supply issue but this can be costly and impractical.
According to the CDC, “To help stop the spread of germs, cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, throw used tissues in the trash, and if you don’t have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your elbow, not your hands.”
Without tissues, sickness may spread more quickly. Without tissues, as is the case in many classrooms, people tend to cough or sneeze into their elbows, hands, or just in the open air which can spread illnesses to other students who then spread it to others as well.
Just like doctor’s offices and other places of business, the school should provide tissues to each classroom each day. Students should not have to take time out of class to go to the bathroom to be able to blow their noses. This causes students to lose class time for learning just to get something that should be in the classroom anyway.
If the school provides hand sanitizer, soap, pads and tampons, etc. why don’t they provide tissues which seem equally necessary?
The Plaid Press 