I know there’s a lot of concern in the community about the H1N1 flu virus. I wanted to review what we’ve done to prepare for this and help in the effort to prevent a widespread outbreak.

So far this year we have not had any confirmed cases of this virus. But it’s likely that we will before the flu season is over, with this many children spending so much time together in a relatively closed environment.

We did have one child whose physician thought it was probable that the child might have an H1N1 case. Though further testing turned out to be negative, it gave us a chance to use special, more intensive cleaning procedures that our custodians were trained on this summer. We did that because the child had been in school for a portion of the day.

As teachers have done for generations, we’re guiding children in good hygiene practices. That means teaching little ones, and reminding bigger ones, about hand washing, covering their mouth when they sneeze or cough, and using tissues.

We’ve installed hand sanitizing stations (non-alcohol based) in our classrooms. We have another shipment coming in soon that will allow us to install them in our cafeterias as well.

All that will help. But I think the single most important thing is for students to be kept home if they’re not feeling well. Specifically, the CDC recommends that a child (or an adult) should stay home for at least 24 hours after there is no longer a fever or signs of a fever (without the use of fever-reducing medicine). Keeping sick students at home means that they keep their viruses to themselves rather than sharing them with others.

If flu conditions become more severe, it’s possible those guidelines will be revised.

The Butler County Health Department is planning to have a large scale, voluntary vaccination program in the schools. It’s important to understand this is not a school program. We are working with the health department to provide a site for its vaccination program, much as we work with the Butler County Board of Elections to provide sites for polling places on Election Day.

The vaccination program is completely optional, and parents will have to sign a permission slip before their child can receive the vaccine. If they don’t want their child to receive it, then the child will not be vaccinated. I am not a physician and won’t offer medical advice, but I do suggest that if parents are seeking information about this on the Internet, they should turn to reliable sources of information, such as the Centers for Disease Control, the Mayo Clinic, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, all of which have a wealth of information about H1N1, and many other health subjects, on their web sites.

We’re having a great year at school. I’m hopeful this flu virus won’t affect our children’s learning, but we also have contingency plans in case there is a widespread outbreak. We’re doing all we can to try to keep that from occurring.

Published in the Fairfield Echo, Oct. 8, 2009