Wash Your Hands. It's The Law

House Bill 382 - Introduced by Rep. Mary Flowers (D-31, Chicago)
Co-sponsored by Rep. Monique Davis (D-27 ,Chicago), Rep. Jerry Mitchell (R-90,Rock Falls), Rep. Robert Pritchard (R-70, DeKalb), Rep. Sandra Pihos (R-42, Glen Ellyn)

Synopsis As Introduced
Amends the Chicago School District Article of the School Code. Provides that under the Chicago Board of Education's policies and rules concerning infectious disease, the Board shall require that all students wash their hands with an antiseptic soap or detergent before consuming any meal at school and shall establish nationally accepted standards and provide the facilities, materials, and supervision necessary to implement the handwashing requirement. Amends the State Mandates Act to require implementation without reimbursement.

Really? It is true that the flu contributes to more deaths per year than second-hand smoke, so we probably should have seen this coming. I've still got some questions though. Is it a good idea for kids to wash their hands before meals? Absolutely, no argument there. Is it wise to make every good idea into a law? No. Chicagoist's Alicia Dorr has even jumped on the nanny bandwagon.

Why discriminate against 2nd graders in Chicago? Why not all kids in Illinois? How will it be enforced? Will kids get fined, detained after school, have to write "I will always wash my hands before meals" on a chalkboard 500 times, or be forced to wear gloves? How will the kids be held accountable and responsible? Who will enforce such a law? Are we going to have to hire hand washing monitors for every school now?

When this law goes statewide, will private schools have to hire hand washing monitors and the state have to hire hand washing inspectors for private schools and homeschooled children? If a school isn't meeting hand washing scores will it lose funding? Will private schools be closed and homeschooled children taken from their parents for criminal negligence if their kids are caught not washing their hands?

If it's a good law for kids, why not for adults? Will we station hand washing police in restaurants to make sure adults are washing their hands? Will search warrants be issued if they suspect adults aren't washing their hands in their own homes? If hand washing laws don't reduce the number of flu related deaths, will we then ban sick people from going out in public? How do we enforce that?

Sure, my questions are preposterous, but so is this bill. And what is very telling about our education system in this bill is that it requires the students to wash their hands, but does not require the teachers to make sure the students are washing their hands. The burden is being placed on the students, not the teachers (finely represented by their unions), to comply with the law.

Would it not make much more sense for the school to write it into the teachers' contract that they must make sure their students wash their hands before meals? Yes it would, but that would require holding teachers accountable, which we don't do in Illinois. Firing a teacher for failing to meet the job requirement of making sure the students wash their hands before meals? We can't have that. It might mean the average number of teachers fired in Illinois each year for poor performance will surpass two.

Hand washing before meals is a good idea for students. The Chicago Public Schools, and all Illinois government schools, should probably write that rule into their union contract as a job description requirement for the teachers if they think this is such a grand idea as to require it being made into law. Just because the unions would never agree to such a thing, does not make a law requiring the students compliance a good idea.

This type of silly micro-managing by our elected politicians is largely why their educational system keeps getting worse. Holding the students accountable and not the teachers? Really?