Mom home-schools kids over H1N1 threat

RIO RANCHO, N.M. (KRQE) - The H1N1 swine flu vaccine is due in New Mexico at the end of the week, but one Rio Rancho parent isn't waiting and instead is taking matters into her own hands.

Shannon Bissell-Peterson, a licenses teacher, decided to home school her children after hearing about the 5-year-old girl in the community who died from the H1N1 virus early last week. Health officials reported the girl had no chronic medical conditions contributing to her death, and school officials identified her as a student at Rio Rancho Elementary School.

Rio Rancho's Martin Luther King Elementary School is closed for fall break, but when it reopens Monday the Bissell kids--Jenna, Jeremy, and Brianna--won't return with their classmates.

“As more and more people get sick I think more and more people are going to start pulling their children out of school and at least taking what precautions they can,” she told KRQE News 13.

She feared her kids might bring the virus home to 4-year-old Colin.

“He gets sick really easy, and he can't get rid of it,” Bissell-Peterson said. “Last year just the common cold he would have for a month or more and just a lot worse than the other kids would get it.”

Bissell-Peterson said she also believes working parents are going against the advice of schools and sending sick kids to class because they cannot find child care.

Some her friends teach in Rio Rancho and have posted their concerns on “Facebook.”

Bissell-Peterson says she doesn’t care if her neighbors think she’s overreacting.

“I would rather overreact and later on say, ‘You know, I did all I could,’ than have something happen to me and say, ‘I really wish I would tried something else' or 'I wish was more cautious,’” she said.

A Rio Rancho Public Schools official told News 13 other parents are considering home schooling and adds children like the Bissells will be welcomed back once the H1N1 threat passes.

The school district has posted H1N1 information on the RRPS Web site . News and information on the virus, precautions and symptoms also can be found within the KRQE.com Health section .