At Ranken-Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital in Maryland Heights, a worker fills up a tub with soapy water and puts it on the floor with three tiny children. They're ready for the day's lesson at Oz, a preschool-like program for babies and toddlers.
Splashing in the water helps the toddlers understand why it's important to wash their hands — something they see people do all the time in the hospital, respiratory therapist Kareema Hrobowski said.
“Right now, we are learning how to wash the germs,” she said. “There are little plastic balls that are the germs. Then we have sponges and we have some soap, and the children are just exploring and, yeah, just playing in the water with soap, washing their hands and washing the germs.”
The preschool is like many others. There is tummy time — when kids lie on the floor to play, and the singing of a “clean-up” song to remind children to put away books and toys.
But Oz is a preschool for pediatric patients. That’s why Hrobowski and other health workers are there alongside traditional teachers and helpers.
“The equipment and the machinery and the tubes and the technology sort of fall to the background, and the supportive folks in the room with kids are also there in the background to let kids be kids be kids and interact with each other,” said Dr. Nick Holkamp, the hospital’s chief medical officer.
People who work at Ranken Jordan call the Maryland Heights facility a “bridge” hospital. It often serves as a halfway point between a more traditional acute care hospital and home.
That means many patients stay for an extended period, Holkamp said. When a kid is away from school for weeks or even months, they miss a lot.
“In almost every hospital in the country, [patients] are by themselves the vast majority of time, he said. “We all know the importance of early childhood education and socialization from infancy onward. That's missing for kids stuck in hospitals for long periods of time.”
The team at Ranken Jordan started the Oz preschool about three years ago, he said. Socializing and learning are important, even when kids are sick or healing.
“If you think about it,” he said, “What is school? What purpose does schooling serve for kids of all ages? I think it's about, obviously, education and learning, but it's also about socialization and developing the future adult.”
Patients at the hospital fall roughly into two groups.
There’s the preschool-aged kids that go to the Oz program. Pre-K-aged children at the hospital often have congenital issues or complications from being born premature. They’re sometimes on life support or ventilators. That’s why the preschool has extra medical help, explained Chief Nursing Officer Kristen LaRose.
Older kids and teenagers at Ranken Jordan often are there for chronic illnesses or as they recover from accidents, she said. Those students usually work with an inbound teacher from their own school, if it’s in the region.
If a patient is from far away, they’ll work with teachers assigned to them from the St. Louis County Special School District, who will visit patients in the hospital.
Not all patients are well enough for school, LaRose said. Whether a patient does schoolwork or how much they take on depends on their condition and how long they’re expected to stay in the hospital. Of the 39 patients at the hospital, 27 are receiving some kind of schooling.
If it’s more than a few weeks, she said, the hospital will likely arrange for education of some kind.
“We can tailor the days to fit kids’ abilities and needs,” LaRose said. “If they’re struggling with pain or have a lot of physical therapy, they'll work around it with teachers…. But I think our older kids, very quickly, really crave that sense of structure and normalcy that school can offer. It’s generally not too much of a tough sell.”
Brianna Turner, an 18-year-old with cerebral palsy healing from a hip surgery, works with an inbound tutor around three times each week.
On a recent morning, she was in a common room doing school work with her teacher, Barb Bressler, working on writing cover letters.
“I'm doing math, we’re doing subtraction, we’re looking at job applications,” Turner said “We're doing a lot of stuff, yeah!”
Bressler said that the rise in virtual schooling, particularly since the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, has opened a lot of opportunities for hospitalized students. Earlier during her stay, Turner, who came to the hospital from Pontiac, Illinois, chatted via video with her teacher and class back home.
“I think [patients] look forward to getting out of their rooms, doing something different,” Bressler said. “A lot of the kids enjoy the new interaction with someone else.”
They’ve also watched movies in different languages. Turner definitely has a favorite.
“Danish!” she said. “I want to speak Danish, all the way.”
