Flu not keeping students from school

By KANDACE MCCOY

kandace.mccoy@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — With the exception of Woodlawn Grade School, local school officials say the flu has not been affecting student attendance.

“We have not really felt much of an impact in regards to the flu,” said Mt. Vernon Township High School Superintendent Mike Smith. “We’ve been maintaining steady numbers consistent with last year and have not seen a significant drop that would rise with attention to the flu.”

Most schools are reporting attendance rates at 94 percent or above. On Tuesday, Mt. Vernon District 80 schools reported 94, 95 and 96 percent attendance at the Primary Center, J.L. Buford and Casey Middle School.

“We really have not been affected very much at all by the flu,” said Superintendent Kevin Settle. “Our average is 94 percent. Sickness is not keeping the students away. I feel we have been somewhat spared, but you never know in the coming weeks.”

District 80 hosted an H1N1 flu clinic a month ago, and Settle said around 300 students participated. Though the district hosted another clinic on Tuesday, he said he believes administration and teachers have “been smarter” this year in regards to teaching students how to prevent illness.

“We received information from everyone on how to teach students abut washing their hands, covering their coughs and staying home if they don’t feel well. We really taught that every day. We also brought in extra sanitizers and allowed extra time to wash hands and believe we have been smarter this year in preventing the spread of germs.”

In October, Woodlawn Grade School canceled two days of classes in connection with a weekend due to a high number of students who were sick.

“It hit us early,” said Superintendent Jerry Travelstead. “We were missing quite a few kids. What was funny about it was that it was hitting classes one at a time. Second grade got hit hard and then the seventh grade got hit — it was weird in that it was in cycles. Realistically, it wasn’t any worse than the regular flu. It wasn’t like terrible, terrible flu, just a matter of everyone having it at once.”

Travelstead said the attendance rate during that time was approximately 75 percent — down from the average of 97 percent, where the school is back at today.

“I think our school did a good job of keeping track of the symptoms and checking on what doctors were saying,” he said.

Bethel Grade School Superintendent Craig Kujawa said the attendance rate there only recently dipped due to illnesses.

“We had a pretty rough month during late October and through November,” he explained. “The attendance rate for those months, October was about 93 percent and November was around 90 percent. It hasn’t been a situation where we’ve had cases of H1N1, just more of the typical flu that just keeps dragging on and spreading.”

Bethel hosted an H1N1 flu clinic on Nov. 23 and had 42 students of the 150 enrolled participate, Kujawa said.

Other county schools say they too have not seen a significant drop in attendance.

Woodlawn High School reported a “little bump in October” from the flu, with the worst day of attendance at 90 percent for approximately three days.

“We’re back to the typical average of 95 percent,” said Superintendent Alan Estes. “But we’re keeping an eye out on the (possible) second wave. Right now the student population is pretty healthy and we’ve implemented precautions and procedures to keep illness to a minimum.”

“We’ve been very lucky,” said Waltonville School District nurse Gail Batteau. “So far we haven’t had much. We’ve had some flu, but compared to other schools we’ve had minor outbreaks.”

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