Please, don't put words in my mouth, publana. If my children were sitting in a crowd of 20k in the foulest sanitary and health conditions for the amount of time these folks were, I would want my child to recover before going anywhere. The most loving thing, imho, would be to allow these children a week to recover and to try and sleep. I wouldn't want my children going anywhere knowing the risk they could present to other people, as well as to their own selves. My goodness, their immune systems must be shot. GI problems and infections are being seen in many of the children. Do we want children with gastroenteritis in school?
ITA. I think they should have at least a week or two of rest and semi-quarantine to make sure they are healthy. I don't think they should be revaccinated for the usual stuff (MMR, etc) because if they were in school in NO, they probably were required to be vaccinated. If nothing else, they can do blood tests to see what they are already immune to... I think if I went through what they have gone through, I sure as heck wouldn't want to be rushed right into school/work because I would be physically and emotionally exhausted.
Children with infectious GI infections most definitely should not be in school. Most adults are lousy at sanitary procedures and germ control- kids are horrible at it.
I am with you----I have a granddaughter in the first grade in a Metroplex elementary school...she already has diabetes..if she were to get one of those bacterial infections...it could be fatal for her.