Waves of swine flu and flu-like illnesses are surging through Washington area schools, doubling the normal absence rate in several school systems and leaving some campuses with as many as one fifth of students out sick.
Although outbreaks linked to the H1N1 virus have shuttered hundreds of schools elsewhere in the nation, local public schools have stayed open this fall. Teachers have been struck ill far less often than students. Tests, lessons and homework go on.
At Osbourn Park High School in Prince William County, the school nurse told Principal Timothy Healey on Monday that she was getting swamped by students with flu symptoms. By midweek, about 19 percent of the school's 2,700 students were out.
"There's a lot of scrambling," Healey said Thursday, when 18 percent were absent. "Getting kids makeup work, parents picking it up. I've even had teachers dropping off assignments at kids' homes."
Healey announced on the school intercom one day that sick students would be given plenty of time to finish incomplete work. "There's pressure, especially the really academically minded kids, panicking because it's the end of the grading period," Healey said. "We're trying to ease that panic."
School officials say a normal absence rate giant inflatable would range from 3 to 5 percent. At midweek, Fairfax County schools reported an absence rate of 6.5 percent. About 8 percent were out in Montgomery, Arlington and Stafford counties and 9 percent in Prince William and Loudoun counties. D.C. school officials reported an October absence rate of 6 percent.
There are no national figures for absence rates. When the swine flu first emerged in the spring, health officials advised schools to shut down if they had confirmed cases. But some educators protested the ensuing disruption of academic calendars. Now, the government wants schools to stay open as much as possible and parents to keep children home if they show symptoms such as fever, aches and cough.
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