View report page

School or class closure, in each case, is decided on individually and on its merits. We can
now get the returns from the school so quickly that it is safe to judge as to school infection from
these returns. As a rule, when measles appears in a single class of an infants' school closure
is applied, but where several classes are affected from the first, and especially where several schools
in a district are affected, it is held that the district is generally affected, and experience has shown
that school or class closure is of no benefit.
Excepting the Borough of Lewisham the method of closing a school on account of the
prevalence of measles, and because the attendance has dropped 10 or 20 per cent., has now been
abandoned throughout the Metropolis.
It is to be noted that one of the consequences of the abolition of the Article marked 101* in
the late Code of the Board of Education is that, not only is the grant for absentees lost, but
in cases of severe epidemics authorities are actually fined for keeping schools open, and it
would be almost worth while defining what percentage attendance is required to prevent loss of
grant arising from counting the school as open and marking the registers.
The reinstatement of this Article 101* has been urged on the Board of Education by many
educational and sanitary authorities in the country, but their entreaties are made to those whose
training has not been such that they can appreciate the enormous importance of keeping infectious
and convalescent children out of school without penalising teachers and school authorities. The
value of the regulation was so great that efforts should be continued to have it re-enacted.