Absentee rates rise in more schools - 83 schools with absentee rates above 10 per cent

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Absentee rates rise in more schools

Wed. Nov 4 - 4:46 AM

As of Tuesday, 18 more schools in the Halifax regional school board district have reported absentee rates above 10 per cent.

In the past two weeks, 83 schools have reported to the provincial Health Department. Schools are required to report to the department during the swine flu pandemic when more than 10 per cent of students call in sick.

On Tuesday, 8,648 students in the region were absent (16 per cent) and 452 teachers (13 per cent).

The board said some of the first schools to be affected by high rates of absenteeism, like Astral Drive Junior High, Eric Graves Memorial Junior High and Duncan MacMillan High, are starting to report near normal attendance.

The latest schools with more than 10 per cent of staff and students off sick are:

?Basinview Drive Community School
?Bedford Junior High
?Bicentennial Junior High
?Cole Harbour District High
?Cornwallis Junior High
?Chebucto Heights Elementary
?Citadel High
?Gaetz Brook Junior High
?George Bissett Elementary
?Hammonds Plains Consolidated Elementary
?Harrietsfield Elementary
?Madeline Symonds Middle School
?Oldfield Consolidated Elementary
?Sackville Centennial Elementary
?Shannon Park Elementary
?Shatford Memorial Elementary
?Southdale-North Woodside Elementary
?Tantallon Elementary

In other parts of the province, Chignecto-Central regional school board reported Tuesday that 51 schools in its district exceeded the 10 per cent absentee rate, while the Valley regional school board had 25 schools and Strait regional school board had seven.

Tri-County regional school board said five schools in its district reported to the Health Department on Tuesday and South Shore regional school board had six schools with higher than average absentee rates.

Conseil scolaire acadien provincial had 12 schools that reported to the Health Department.

Source: provincial school boards


http://thechronicleherald.ca/News/1151042.html

 

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Re: Absentee rates rise in more schools - 83 schools with absentee rates above 10 per cent

Schools report high absentee rates due to swine flu

Minor hockey teams also being hit hard
by Stacey Colwell


COUNTY - Many schools are being hit hard by the spread of the H1N1 flu virus. "There's no question in our mind ? that in our schools where absenteeism is up that it is related to flu-like symptoms," said South Shore Regional School Board superintendent Nancy Pynch-Worthylake in a November 5 interview.

Chester Area Middle School reported absentee rates between 38 and 53 per cent and Centre Consolidated was at or above 30 per cent most of last week, while Bayview Community School, Gold River?Western Shore and Forest Heights all reported absentee rates of at least 20 per cent for more than a day each.

By mid-week, Hebbville Academy, Lunenburg Academy, Chester District Elementary and Aspotogan Consolidated had all reported absentee rates of at least 15 per cent and New Germany Rural High School reported 22 per cent of its students absent on Friday.

Absentee rates of five or maybe even 10 per cent wouldn't necessarily be unusual during a typical flu season.

Ms Pynch-Worthylake said because the H1N1 virus is currently widespread in Nova Scotia, families are only being notified when a high number of students at their school or from their community are reporting flu-like symptoms, and that there are no plans to close schools, which is consistent across the province.

"The only thing that would cause us to close a school is if operationally we couldn't maintain a school."

So far, staff absences have not been unmanageable.

"The direction from Health Promotion and Protection has been to continue life as normal and that has been our focus."

Therefore, the board is not putting any limits on extra-curricular activities.

"We encourage those who are well to continue to come to school."


Meanwhile, sick students will not be penalized for time missed.

"Each teacher will have his or her own strategy for ensuring students get the work that was done while they were away and are able to make up the things they didn't get done."

The South Shore Minor Hockey Association has also been hit hard by the swine flu.

"All our minor hockey teams are being affected by the H1N1," said president Spencer Westhaver on November 4.

"I coach the bantam AAA team and on Sunday we went to the Valley for a league game short six players. That number had risen to 10 sick players who were absent from Tuesday night practice. If we would have had scheduled games this weekend, we most likely would have cancelled."

Since the beginning of the 2009-10 influenza season in September through the end of October, Nova Scotia had 377 lab-confirmed cases, 26 hospitalizations and no deaths related to the illness.

"H1N1 is the only flu strain we are currently seeing in the province," said Maureen Baikie, deputy chief medical officer of health, in a November 4 press release.

"We will continue to see more sick people and activity across the province."

The province publishes an on-line report on respiratory illnesses, including H1N1, every Wednesday at

http://www.gov.ns.ca/hpp/publications/NSRespiratoryWatch.pdf.

For more information, check on-line at http://www.gov.ns.ca/hpp/h1n1.


posted on 11/10/09

http://www.southshorenow.ca/archives/2009/111009/news/index036.php

 

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Re: Absentee rates rise in more schools - 83 schools with absentee rates above 10 per cent

Schools? sick kids, staff high for second week

by Nancy Kelly/Kings County Register

Article online since November 16th 2009

BY NANCY KELLY

Kings County Register

For a second week in a row, more than half of Valley schools reported student absentee rates due to illness over the 20 per cent level.

During the week of Nov. 9 to 13, the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board?s (AVRSB) average absentee rate hovered at 21 per cent, remaining constant from the previous week, when the same percentage of students at were reported out sick over a five-day period.

Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of last week, 24, 26 and 21 schools called in respective absenteeism rates of 21.52, 22.39 and 19.37 per cent. Schools were closed Wednesday for Remembrance Day and an AVRSB spokesperson said, by noon Friday, 19.92 per cent of students at 17 schools were reported not in class, cautioning not all schools had called in by that time.

Regional school board superintendent Margo Tait acknowledged the board is also experiencing higher than average absenteeism among teachers. To this point, programming has not been disrupted as the board has been able to fill the positions from its pool of approximately 400 substitute teachers. Student bussing has not experienced any issues despite the fact some bus drivers have been out sick as well.

http://www.novanewsnow.com/article-401573-Schools-sick-kids-staff-high-for-second-week.html