Flu is Here

Floods of screenshots from Snapchat stories circulated group messages on Feb. 9 reading, “SME PSA: Currently 9.3% of people are sick. If it hits 10%, the school has to report to the Health Department. Then, school would be shut down. About 11 more kids need to go home sick. Make sure if you leave, office knows your leaving due to illness.” While some students were pushing for another day off from school, 164 students were focused on relieving their flu like symptoms.

The increased number of absentees with flu-like symptoms this past month has prompted questions from the community about varying levels of the severity of sickness, the impact of custodial services and the strictness of transfer absence rules. However, experts in each of their respective fields bring truth to these ambiguities.

According to Kansas Influenza Surveillance Coordinator Amie Worthington, who collects, tracks and communicates the influenza levels for the state of Kansas, the strain of influenza affecting East most significantly is AH3. The symptoms include fever, coughing, fatigue, vomiting, congestion and/or sore throat.

“[AH3] is known to cause more severe illness,” Worthington said. “It’s not surprising that we are seeing higher numbers [ill] with this strain.”

The severity of AH3 is stronger than past years’ flu virus according to Worthington. St. Luke’s Hospital Internal Medicine Doctor Christine Sankcill also said the number of flu cases last year were significantly less than this year.

Last year, SMSD didn’t have any schools reach 10 percent absenteeism, according to SMSD Health Services Coordinator Shelbey Rebeck. This year, six of 47 total Shawnee Mission schools reached 10 percent.

Upon East reaching 10 percent total absences, school nurse Susan Varner informed Rebeck who reports it to the Johnson County Health Department and Kansas Health Department. All public schools in the state of Kansas are required to inform their county health department and further inform the state.

This procedure is for tracking and safety purposes according to Rebeck. After reporting to the health department, the Shawnee Mission Custodial Coordinator Judd Remmers, sends one to two extra custodians to each of the impacted schools for help with cleaning major touchpoints.

Touchpoint cleaning is a state regulation requiring the custodial staff to deep clean door knobs, desks, bathrooms, light switches, water fountains and keyboards – central spots collecting germs, according to East head janitor Dale Clark.

These touchpoints are mostly cleaned at the end of each day according to Clark. Remmers said they should also be cleaned throughout the school day. AP government teacher Ronald Stallard said he sees less custodians around this year and spanish teacher Pamela James said that although the custodians are doing what they can with who they have, it seems as though the cleaning touch points throughout the day is minimal.

Clark said that the staff of 13 gets all of the jobs done with the staff East has, but that no matter what job whether it be teachers, administrators or custodians, they could always use more. Each school in the SMSD has an equal number of custodians according to Remmers, he does not feel that there is a lack of staffing.

“We know that when the doors open the next day it doesn’t take long to undo all that work with people coming in and immediately flipping light switches and touching door handles or drinking out of water fountains,” Remmers said. “It’s right back pretty quickly.”

For the SMSD, having six schools out of 47 total reach 10 percent absence is doing well considering the number of bodies in the buildings Rebeck said.

Spanish teacher Pamela James has seen a significant level of sick students in her classes. More specifically, in her first hour Spanish 3 class on Feb. 13, six students were absent from a class of 27. This level of absence has made teaching harder because of the steep makeup work required, James said.

Worthington says that reaching the 10 percent absence rate is not “overwhelming,” but rather shows that there is a particular population, such as a school or company, affected by the flu.

“It is an arbitrary number,” Worthington said. “We just feel that that is a level of absenteeism that should be investigated as an outbreak and suggestion for control should be given.”

Although a number of students view “outbreak” as an distressing sign, an outbreak is not considered alarming to the state and does not reflect the cleanliness or environment of the school according to Worthington.

Outbreaks are a general sign that the school should be investigated by the state. The “investigation” breaks down exactly how many students and teachers are absent with the flu or symptoms of the flu and ensure the district is taking proper precautions and informing their community of ways to prevent illness. The entire state and other districts are experiencing similar absentee levels to Shawnee Mission and taking necessary precautions.

Bonner Springs High School Nurse Kim Bolewski said they were seeing an increase in student absenteeism due to illness. The Olathe district Director of Health Services Sharon Morris said that in the past two weeks there have been six schools with over 10 percent of the student body absent.

According to the Blue Valley District Health Services Coordinator Kari Szukalski, when any of their 37 total schools reaches five percent absence, they notify custodial services. This is a caution taken so that their district doesn’t reach the 10 percent level of absences according to Szukalski. Still, Blue Valley has had three schools reach 10 percent absenteeism in the past two weeks.

“Right now we are reporting widespread activity,” Worthington said. “We are seeing outbreaks of influenza in every region of Kansas, there isn’t necessarily an area of Kansas not being affected by the flu right now.”

This widespread activity of AH3 holds a heavy hand over the entire country, not just Kansas, as seen on CDC.gov’s weekly flu map. Kansas has been deemed one of the sickest states in the nation, alongside Missouri, in 2017-2018, according to the Center of Disease Control and many other news sources. Nationally, seven and a half percent of the population is affected, compared to Kansas’ 11 percent according to Worthington.

Kansas reported “no activity” of the flu from 2009 until 2015 according to CDC.gov, meaning very insignificant levels –– a vacancy compared to last year’s report of sporadic infection and this year’s widespread condition.

There is no definite reason for the flu taking flight this year, however, Sankcill said that the flu comes in waves such as the H1N1 influx in 2009. She has seen more patients sick with the flu this year than last year, but the flu is a consistent issue. Rebeck said she believes that a contributing factor to Kansas’ leading position in illness is good statewide reporting. The information the state reports to the nation is collected based on the number of flu tests and visits to doctors, physicians and school or company reports of absences.

According to Sankcill, testing has become more sensitive, both in the science of testing and rate of swabbing ER patients with remote symptoms. Increased accessibility to tests at places such as urgent care clinics may be a contributing factor, Sankcill said.

In order to prevent further infection, SMSD pushes out information about ways to keep from getting sick and reminders for teachers to wipe down the desks in their classrooms according to Rebeck.

Sankcill said in addition to precautions like washing your hands regularly, keeping your hands away from your face and getting the flu shot, staying home or away from people is “very important.”

According to a Harbinger poll of 158 respondents, 74 percent said they had recently been sick. However, 25 percent of those who were sick didn’t stay home. Rebeck said that spreading illness isn’t something a district does, it spreads naturally.

“You can clean and clean and clean, but if folks come to school with a virus, they’re gonna spread it just by sneezing in the air,” Clark said.

Junior Anika Radidya believes that many students don’t stay home just because they aren’t vomiting or don’t have a fever, a misconception about illness.

Radidya is not excluded from the people who only stay home for a fever, however, she was on antibiotics. She developed a small cough on Feb. 7, still going to school, and by Feb. 9 was fainting and vomiting. She stayed home for one day and was one of the 164 students absent and sick with flu like symptoms, although she was never diagnosed with the flu officially.

Radidya said she doesn’t like to miss school because she has IB classes and debate work but was also under the impression she couldn’t miss another day of school because she is a transfer student.

Transfer students have a cap of 10 days to be absent for each school year in order to continue attending the school they are transferred into. After staying home sick on Feb. 9, Radidya used all 10 of her permitted absences –– six days due to an in-school debate activity, two due to traveling and two because of sickness according to her Skyward.

However, according to Assistant Principal Brinton Haney, in-school activities are not counted against transfer students. Each transfer is looked at case-by-case and if the student has communicated beforehand that they are sick, the number of days they are absent with an illness is often times counted as just one absence.

Sophomore Will Mohr, a non-transfer student, stayed home for four days due to his sore throat, headache and chills. Mohr doesn’t like to miss school much like Radidya because it’s easy to fall behind and become overwhelmed with makeup work. However, he said teachers have been accommodating and his pressure to do well comes from himself.

Students in Mercedes Rasmussen’s marketing class questioned their ability to go home while being sick due to the listed absence rules, however, Haney clarified that the rules are for county reporting and that with communication with the administration, absences are able to be figured out.

Despite hestations to miss school whether due to self-induced pressure or due to thinking that there is a maximum number of days a student (transfer or not transfer) is allowed to be absent, it is best to stay home when you are sick according to Worthington. Because this strain of the flu has no direct root, it’s important to take the health precautions seriously Sankcill said. Staying away from people and wearing a mask when around people are important ways to avoid spreading your illness.

“This is just an extension of the house and just like any other parent, my kids go here and I want it to be clean and safe,” Principal John McKinney said. “As important as being in school is, it means nothing if kids aren’t safe or healthy.”