Flu fear not hurting school attendance

Attendance at area schools remains high despite public warnings concerning novel A H1N1 virus and reports of a lack of vaccine to combat the illness.

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Pamela Harper, the school nurse at Martinez Elementary, checks a cut on Emonni Reynold's foot. In spite of concern over swine flu, attendance in Columbia County schools is still good.

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Jim Blaylock/Staff

Martinez Elementary school nurse Pamela Harper helps third-grader Joel Rippy take some medicine.

Since school started in August, the lowest average daily attendance rate thus far recorded by Columbia County school officials is 94.9 percent.

On Tuesday, the attendance rate was 96.9 percent.

"We understand that the virus is very serious, but we don't have the documentation showing that it has affected our area on a widespread scale," said Columbia County schools Assistant Superintendent Robert Jarrell. "We've been affected by it, certainly, but it hasn't been widespread."

The Augusta area's first death from complications due to contracting the illness was 10-year-old Summer Rockefeller, a fifth-grader at Euchee Creek Elementary School.

Following her death, however, Euchee Creek Elementary Principal Wanda Golosky said few parents called her in a panicked state, fretting over the health of their children.

Mr. Jarrell said that he, too, has received few phone calls from parents worried about H1N1, which is commonly referred to as swine flu.

Much of the lack of concern, Mr. Jarrell said, is likely due to stringent board policies preventing sick pupils from attending school and possibly spreading the illness.

"With the viruses that are going around, we are trying to isolate any children or employees who are demonstrating symptoms, like sneezing and coughing," he said.

Richmond County school officials also have revised their policy to combat spreading influenza among the pupil population.

"Ordinarily, any student that is vomiting or has a (temperature) of 100.4 (degrees) is considered too sick for school," spokesman Louis Svehla said in an e-mail. "However, in this season of the flu, if a student has two or more flu-like symptoms we like the parents to keep them at home."

"Flu-like symptoms" include coughing, sore throat, headache, stomachache, runny nose, fever, nausea and vomiting, Mr. Svehla said.

Like its neighboring county, Richmond also has experienced few absences this school year.

The county's overall average daily attendance rate of 96.92 percent through Oct. 2 is just slightly lower than the attendance rate over the same time period last school year, which was 97.24 percent.

As of Sept. 5, Aiken County school officials were reporting attendance rates of about 98 percent.

The school system only calculates attendance rates every 45 days, so no immediate figures were available this week.

However, school nurses did report that they had 115 cases of H1N1. During the last week of September, an average of 37 students were sent home each day with flu-like symptoms. An additional 125 students were reported by the parents as absent with flu-like symptoms.

In accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, pupils must display normal temperatures for a 24-hour period without the aid of medicine before returning to schools.

Reach Donnie Fetter and Julia Sellers at (706) 724-0851.