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Schools adjusting to the prospect of swine flu blitz
BY VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN
10/12/2009
With student absences piling up at some schools during the swine flu outbreak, education leaders are asking districts to rethink policies and procedures that were designed with healthy students in mind.
The virus hits more than students and teachers ? it's affecting "perfect attendance" awards, online communication plans and even school lunches for poor students.
The U.S. Department of Education has recommended that school districts develop illness action plans, which include putting materials online, telephone conferencing between teachers and students, and creating take-home packets for up to 12 weeks of classroom material.
But in the St. Louis area, the response by many districts has been business as usual, with no elaborate flu contingency plans, just slight tweaks along the way.
"Teachers adjust ? that's part of what they do," said Randy Charles, superintendent of the St. Charles School District. Earlier this month, about 20 percent of Monroe Elementary's students were home sick with the flu. Teachers met with students before and after school to help make up work.
"When you end up with large absences in one classroom, though, sometimes you end up reteaching lessons," Charles said. "Sometimes that just has to happen."
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is not requiring schools to come up with contingency plans, but policy adjustments tied to the H1N1 virus are popping up.
Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro asked school administrators to suspend any rules that require a doctor's note for readmission. Patients seeking doctor's notes were overwhelming emergency rooms, and the visits were creating a burden on hospitals and an unnecessary cost for parents, she said.
The department also sent a memo to districts outlining how to get meals to low-income students in the event of school closures due to a flu outbreak. Schools would still get reimbursement money for the meals. Illinois has sent out similar information to school districts urging them to continue meal programs for absent students.
At Our Savior Lutheran School in Fenton, principal Jim House wonders how the school might handle tuition payments for children who may be absent for several days or a week.
One thing public schools in Missouri won't have to worry about is losing state money because of high rates of absenteeism. While state funding is tied to attendance, a provision already on the books allows schools in crisis to base funding on the previous year's attendance rates, said education department spokesman Jim Morris.
The Illinois Department of Education has also posted information online explaining to schools how they may be able to claim "Act of God" days for unexpected closures due to the H1N1 virus. Such days would, under certain circumstances, not have to be made up.
Likewise, even ambitious students hoping for perfect attendance awards might find an escape clause.
At Hazelwood's Armstrong Elementary, which got hit by the flu last month, principal Amy Dittmar planned to skip this quarter's perfect attendance award. And provided the flu doesn't hit hard for the rest of the year, she'll probably only count the last three quarters for the school's yearlong award. "We don't want to penalize the kids who were out," she said.
Parkway South and Southwest middle schools decided to forgo giving out perfect attendance awards this year ? they fear ambitious students will come to school sick just to get recognition in May.
Some districts already have technology in place to communicate with students and parents, systems that can be useful during times of unusually high absences.
Fort Zumwalt School District, like many others, has a "parent portal" on its website where parents can log in and see their children's homework assignments. It has come in handy for many parents whose children were out with the flu, about 125 students so far in the 18,700-student district, said Superintendent Bernard DuBray.
If half the students got sick, DuBray said, that would be a different story. "But so far it's been pretty easy to deal with," he said.
But technology experts think districts can do more.
Susan Patrick, head of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, said schools set up for online learning are also equipped to handle crises. "Online learning can not only help with continuity of learning, but can also provide resources in the classroom day-to-day," she said.
To experiment with such online options, one Chicago public high school, Voise Academy, held a "flu drill" one day last week where students stayed home and completed lessons with teachers with the help of school-distributed laptops.
Patrick said weeklong virtual school drills are common in Singapore, which instituted them as a reaction to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) six years ago. Some schools even shut down for weeklong virtual drills a few times a year, she said. She acknowledges such approaches aren't effective if districts don't have equipment and trained teachers or students don't have online access at home.
Those factors worry Alton Superintendent David Elson, who says reaching all students via the Internet simply is not feasible.
"It really ends up being a hit-or-miss proposition to decide how you are going to continue providing an education," he said.
Bryan Hilton, a history teacher at Lindbergh School District's alternative high school, has a paperless classroom and uses an online site called Moodle to teach his class. Not all teachers use the program or know how, though Hilton's doing his best to teach them.
With Moodle, students can turn in assignments, have discussions, and post links. Recently, a student who stayed home was able to watch a video with the class and participate in an online discussion as the class watched, he said.
"With the flu they can pretty much not skip a beat if you have it set up right," he said.
BY VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN
10/12/2009
With student absences piling up at some schools during the swine flu outbreak, education leaders are asking districts to rethink policies and procedures that were designed with healthy students in mind.
The virus hits more than students and teachers ? it's affecting "perfect attendance" awards, online communication plans and even school lunches for poor students.
The U.S. Department of Education has recommended that school districts develop illness action plans, which include putting materials online, telephone conferencing between teachers and students, and creating take-home packets for up to 12 weeks of classroom material.
But in the St. Louis area, the response by many districts has been business as usual, with no elaborate flu contingency plans, just slight tweaks along the way.
"Teachers adjust ? that's part of what they do," said Randy Charles, superintendent of the St. Charles School District. Earlier this month, about 20 percent of Monroe Elementary's students were home sick with the flu. Teachers met with students before and after school to help make up work.
"When you end up with large absences in one classroom, though, sometimes you end up reteaching lessons," Charles said. "Sometimes that just has to happen."
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is not requiring schools to come up with contingency plans, but policy adjustments tied to the H1N1 virus are popping up.
Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro asked school administrators to suspend any rules that require a doctor's note for readmission. Patients seeking doctor's notes were overwhelming emergency rooms, and the visits were creating a burden on hospitals and an unnecessary cost for parents, she said.
The department also sent a memo to districts outlining how to get meals to low-income students in the event of school closures due to a flu outbreak. Schools would still get reimbursement money for the meals. Illinois has sent out similar information to school districts urging them to continue meal programs for absent students.
At Our Savior Lutheran School in Fenton, principal Jim House wonders how the school might handle tuition payments for children who may be absent for several days or a week.
One thing public schools in Missouri won't have to worry about is losing state money because of high rates of absenteeism. While state funding is tied to attendance, a provision already on the books allows schools in crisis to base funding on the previous year's attendance rates, said education department spokesman Jim Morris.
The Illinois Department of Education has also posted information online explaining to schools how they may be able to claim "Act of God" days for unexpected closures due to the H1N1 virus. Such days would, under certain circumstances, not have to be made up.
Likewise, even ambitious students hoping for perfect attendance awards might find an escape clause.
At Hazelwood's Armstrong Elementary, which got hit by the flu last month, principal Amy Dittmar planned to skip this quarter's perfect attendance award. And provided the flu doesn't hit hard for the rest of the year, she'll probably only count the last three quarters for the school's yearlong award. "We don't want to penalize the kids who were out," she said.
Parkway South and Southwest middle schools decided to forgo giving out perfect attendance awards this year ? they fear ambitious students will come to school sick just to get recognition in May.
Some districts already have technology in place to communicate with students and parents, systems that can be useful during times of unusually high absences.
Fort Zumwalt School District, like many others, has a "parent portal" on its website where parents can log in and see their children's homework assignments. It has come in handy for many parents whose children were out with the flu, about 125 students so far in the 18,700-student district, said Superintendent Bernard DuBray.
If half the students got sick, DuBray said, that would be a different story. "But so far it's been pretty easy to deal with," he said.
But technology experts think districts can do more.
Susan Patrick, head of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, said schools set up for online learning are also equipped to handle crises. "Online learning can not only help with continuity of learning, but can also provide resources in the classroom day-to-day," she said.
To experiment with such online options, one Chicago public high school, Voise Academy, held a "flu drill" one day last week where students stayed home and completed lessons with teachers with the help of school-distributed laptops.
Patrick said weeklong virtual school drills are common in Singapore, which instituted them as a reaction to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) six years ago. Some schools even shut down for weeklong virtual drills a few times a year, she said. She acknowledges such approaches aren't effective if districts don't have equipment and trained teachers or students don't have online access at home.
Those factors worry Alton Superintendent David Elson, who says reaching all students via the Internet simply is not feasible.
"It really ends up being a hit-or-miss proposition to decide how you are going to continue providing an education," he said.
Bryan Hilton, a history teacher at Lindbergh School District's alternative high school, has a paperless classroom and uses an online site called Moodle to teach his class. Not all teachers use the program or know how, though Hilton's doing his best to teach them.
With Moodle, students can turn in assignments, have discussions, and post links. Recently, a student who stayed home was able to watch a video with the class and participate in an online discussion as the class watched, he said.
"With the flu they can pretty much not skip a beat if you have it set up right," he said.
