Worried sick about the flu in St. Charles

Despite the surge of absences that caused St. Charles East High School to cancel three days of classes this week, county health officials say absences seem to be resulting more from concern about illness than actual flu symptoms.

Classes were canceled for the remainder of the week at St. Charles East High School on Tuesday after nearly 1,000 students were absent, many of whom reported flu-like symptoms, according to school officials.

With 972 students out Tuesday, East had more than 44 percent of its 2,200-student population absent, prompting school to be canceled Wednesday through Friday and all extracurricular activities postponed.

Kane County Health Department Executive Director Paul Kuehnert said he usually becomes concerned once a school reaches 5 percent absent due to influenza-like symptoms. Though overall absences were much higher, Kuehnert said he received information from East that the number of students absent because of flu symptoms was less than 5 percent.

“Parents are very concerned and it’s totally understandable,” Kuehnert said. “But I think part of what’s going on here is a little bit of a hypersensitive reaction that in neighboring counties, high school students have died from the flu — one in Naperville and earlier this week in Sandwich. I understand. I’m a parent too. I think everyone is concerned.”

District 303 Superintendent Don Schlomann said 611 students were absent at the beginning of Monday, and that grew to 808 students by the end of the day. It then escalated to 972 students Tuesday. Schlomann said they decided to close the school in collaboration with the county health department.

“Their suggestion was that if it is H1N1 — and that’s a question — that it normally runs its course in about five days,” Schlomann said.

Kuehnert said it’s important for parents to understand that there is no cause for panic in this situation.

“I understand the superintendent had to make a decision based on total absentees,” Kuehnert said. “I think what we want to reassure parents and the community of is that as far as we can tell, there is not a huge flu outbreak or something like that going on at the high school.”

Schlomann said all staff will still report to East. He said he is having each teacher call students from their second period class to check on their health and to alter lesson plans to help catch students up Monday.

The custodial staff will also be at East to give the school a thorough cleaning, Schlomann said.

“This is uncharted territory,” Schlomann said. “They don’t teach you this in superintendent school.”

Schlomann said while not all students were affected by flu-like symptoms, the majority in East’s nurses office late Tuesday were there with symptoms of the flu.

“I think what parents need to do is exercise their best judgment,” Schlomann said. “I’m sure parents are worried. They should be worried about that.”

The district has said the high level of absences is beginning to affect normal school operations.

All other District 303 schools will remain open and are experiencing normal absentee rates, according to officials.

Kuehnert said that while individual cases on H1N1 are no longer tracked, there has been an uptick in reports of influenza. This is what is being used to track H1N1, according to Kuehnert.

“If you have symptoms of the flu, which are a sore throat or a cough or fever over 100 degrees, in all likelihood, you have H1N1,” said District 303’s director of school and community relations, Jim Blaney. “Doctors are not diagnosing H1N1, just treating flu-like symptoms.”

Blaney said he’s glad to see parents heed the health department’s warnings of this season’s flu.

“Parents are obviously concerned,” Blaney said. “They’re calling in and asking questions. We’ve had a handful of (concerned) phone calls, but mainly the calls have been seeking additional information about guidance coming out of the health department.”

Nick Rodgers, a student at St. Charles East, was home from school Tuesday with a sinus infection. He said he had flu-like symptoms, but his flu test came up negative at the doctor’s office.

Rodgers said he had a lot of friends that were home sick, all with flu-like symptoms.

“I think this all started because of homecoming,” Rodgers said of the dance and festivities held last Saturday. “I think a lot of people went to the dance sick and spread it to everyone else.”

Rodgers said everyone he knows that stayed home was “definitely sick,” including a couple of friends who told him they had H1N1.

“I think it makes sense (to close the school) if you have 900 kids gone,” Rodgers said. “I think it will help out. People that are sick, it’s not like parents are going to let them go hang out with anyone. This should work.”

There are about 13,500 students in District 303, meaning about 7.2 percent of the district was out just from St. Charles East absences.

The postponed extracurricular activities include the fall play, the East-North football game, and the Kick-a-Thon, a large fundraising event for cancer.