Keep your little snot rocket home or why there are wellness rules at school

As I sit here, blowing my nose for the 45th time today, the taste of DayQuil lingering on my lips, my brain swimming in a pool of snot, writing to you, I feel like stabbing you in the throat. Why?  Because you are the parent of a small child.  As such, you are quite aware of their tendency to carry more germs than the doorknob of a public bathroom. Yet, for some unexplained reason, you have no trouble leaving them in someone else's care when they are clearly on death's door. I realize you think that you are very important and your job is your life. The inflated opinion you have of yourself is evident every time you leave your child in day care when you are not at work and don't really need to. I've never been summoned by Starbucks to show up immediately, adults only.  Nordstrom has never called me to demand that I attend a shopping excursion with my besties. But they obviously do this to you, right?
Those reasons and the fact that you perform neurosurgery on an on-call basis are why you choose to drop your child off at school, green slime dripping down their face, coughing up thick goo, and looking like a zombie. I'm assuming that you didn't notice it when you were getting them ready this morning.  Very hard to see technicolor snot when you are helping them brush their teeth, right? Being two feet from their face isn't close enough to get coughed on, splattered with spewed mucus. I must be mistaken. The thing is, you do know. You are so aware of how ill they are, you've made the pilgrimage to Walgreens, purchased the cold medicine, the Tylenol, and administered the appropriate dosage to disguise most of the symptoms.
Guess what, douchecanoe, as a parent and a teacher, I can tell when you've done that. Not only is it physically obvious, but you didn't count on a very crucial detail.  Kids are honest to a fault.  They rat your ass out the second you leave the building. "Mommy gave me the pink medicine after breakfast! I had toast and butter and a banana..." Pink medicine translates to Amoxicillan for those in the know. That would mean your kid has some form of bacterial infection that likely causes a fever.  I'll bet you gave them the red medicine, too.  Maybe the orange one if the fever was really high.  In case you weren't aware, your child ratted you out on that, too. Red=Tylenol, Orange=Motrin. Yes, we know these little details. So, in three hours when the rainbow of liquid curatives wears off, and your child crashes like a ton of bricks, we'll have expected it.
When someone from your child's school calls you, after they've crashed and burned, don't question them like they have nothing better to do than lie to you. We don't call a parent unless it is serious enough to warrant a phone call.  We realize you are at work, or the mall, or whatever is more important than your child. Trust me, we hate to interrupt your day, but when we do call, answer the goddamn phone. The numbers you put on the emergency list should be working phone numbers of all those nearby and able to pick up at a moment's notice. This includes YOU, mom and dad.  Don't get huffy and start asking if they have a fever, how high is it, can't they just lie down somewhere, or are you sure they are sick enough to go home.  After your child has hurled chunks on the carpeting, spiked a raging fever, and is covered in mucus, we are fairly confident that they are, indeed, ill and need to get the fuck out of here.

Here's what you either don't realize or don't give a shit about. When you subject an entire class of children to your very sick, unable to cover his coughs and sneezes, jamming his fingers up his nose and touching everything in sight, child, you've basically told me that you want 20-something others to get just as sick.  What I hear, is that you even want ME to catch all those nasty ass germs, get sick as hell, and bring those germs home to my family, where I can then share them and infect my husband and daughter.  That IS your intent, isn't it? As long as you aren't put out in any way, I wouldn't want you to have to actually take responsibility for your own child.
Last year, my daughter had mono. Right when school started, sick as a freaking dog, high fevers, blood work, hepatitis, and just godawful malaise. She was immune-compromised and none of you knew that. See, it doesn't matter whether or not you knew, what matters is that you wouldn't have cared if you did. I had to make sure I didn't bring your kid's jungle funk home with me. The way you should handle sickness is assume everyone is immune-compromised and keep the germs as far away as possible. You don't know what is going on in someone else's house, but you should be compassionate enough to care. Your kid is important to you, she is your world.  Surprise, so is mine. And I'd ram a shiv through eye and into your brain if I knew you were the one that got her so sick.
If you make the decision to have children, be very aware that they are your responsibility first, and that when they are ill, it is on you to care for them. Other children do not deserve to suffer for your lack of parenting skills or absence of basic consideration for the rest of the world. Don't expect that teachers are best suited to deal with your snotting, hacking child.  Their pediatrician agrees with me. They need to be home, in bed, snuggled up to a favorite doll, not in school, dripping boogers down the front of their shirt. Am I happy that you've ruined another fucking weekend for me?  Are you friggin kidding me right now???