Health Beyond the Blog: “Ringworm” on Abbott Elementary

When a student gets ringworm at Abbott Elementary, teachers unite to respond to a potential disease outbreak.

by Laniah Bowdery

Abbott elementary is a five-season mockumentary sit-com created by Quinta Brunson. The show details the struggles and success of an underfunded public elementary school in Philadelphia. The second episode of the fourth season “Ringworm” offers excellent and comedic commentary on infectious disease and the spread of an illness—at a smaller scale—in a classroom.

“Ringworm” starts with a student scratching his arm constantly in class. Jacob, the teacher, inspects the student’s arm and notes that the student has ringworm, a fungal infection that appears as a ring-shaped rash. He takes this news to the break room, unworriedly, but the other teachers react with much more urgency. The ringworm infection is treated as if it has already spread. The staff splits the school into two floors and bans students from moving between floors. They implement strategies such as frequent hand washing, no group activities, and isolation for those students who are infected or exposed, which are all accurate to not just ringworm, but precautions taken for other illnesses.

Each teacher has distinct personalities that informs their reaction to the outbreak. Jacob, the original teacher, is flippant and does not respect the rules of quarantine and containment that the other staff put in place. Gregory immediately runs out of the room after receiving the news. He spends the rest of the episode being overly paranoid, obsessively sanitizing, and even limiting contact with his girlfriend who also teaches at the school. Barbara’s reaction stands out. She goes into rooms that have been made off limits and comments that she is protected by God and thus, is immune to ringworm. Janine, Melissa, Ava, and Mr. Johnson, are representative of everyday people who do what they can to prevent the spread of illness to the best of their abilities.

Abbott Elementary offers excellent observations on public health attitudes and health resources in inner-city schools. The show explores how individual positions affect collective health. It advances the idea that we all have a responsibility to do what we can for the health of others: each of our actions can have a domino effect that impacts health.

There is humor and familiarity in the way different staff members react or do not react to the possibility of an outbreak. The subsequent sanitization, cleaning, and handwashing mirrors our daily life as the Covid-19 pandemic and Flu/Cold/RSV seasons continue. The language and themes in the show are accessible to all ages as it is set up in an elementary school.

Abbot Elementary assures us that we are all in this together and must treat health as a communal effort.

Abbott Elementary airs every Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. (EST) on ABC and is available for streaming on Hulu.