Schools chart cautious course in face of flu fears
CDC guidelines adopted to reduce impact of illness
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Children in class last semester at the Bohrer-Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County in Randolph, where nurse Phyllis Glen has been readying a campaign to educate parents and students about the swine flu.
Photo courtesy Bohrer-Kaufman Hebrew Academy
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September 2, 2009
Precautions ranging from a race for an effective swine flu vaccine to the installation of hand sanitizers in the classroom were on the minds of Jewish educators as they prepared for the first day of school.
While the spread of the H1NI virus, commonly known as the swine flu, has slowed since it appeared last spring, health officials are concerned about a second major wave of infections once flu season begins.
And with students returning to classes, schools are adopting new health safety measures out of concern for potential outbreaks in the fall.
At the Nathan Bohrer-Abraham Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County in Randolph, nurse Phyllis Glen has been readying the school for weeks.
A “thorough campaign” developed at the school includes posters to educate the students and programs for parents, including on back-to-school night on Sept. 10.
At the parents’ briefings, Glen said, “we will go over the symptoms,” which include cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue, as well as possible diarrhea and vomiting.
“We are going to reinforce — as parents should at home — respiratory etiquette. That means coughing in you sleeve — not in your hand — hand-washing, and using the liquid hand sanitizers we have put in every classroom.”
As a further precaution, the school is urging parents to always have their cell phones on in case their children fall ill at school. “There are a lot of working parents, so we have to plan to have people available” to pick up students who become sick,” Glen said. In addition, updates will also be posted as needed in the parents’ section of the HAMC website. “We don’t know how hard we are going to get hit,” she said.
Like officials at HAMC, those at Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston and Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union in West Orange are following guidelines prepared by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC is urging parents and teachers to be on the lookout for such signs of sickness as breathing problems, bluish or gray skin color, severe or persistent vomiting, not being able to stay awake or interact, and having flu-like symptoms that improve, then return with fever and a worsened cough.
The CDC says those with symptoms “should stay home and keep away from others as much as possible,” and people recovering from the swine flu should remain at home for 24 hours after their fevers subside.
In an orientation held before the start of classes, nurses and officials at Kushner briefed lower-school parents about symptoms and warning signs. “We are following CDC recommendations,” said head of school Susan Dworken.
At Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union, school nurses will follow protocols set down by the West Orange Department of Health and the CDC, said Donna Oshri, director of marketing and communications.
Those protocols could add to what may be higher-than-usual absentee rates at day school and afterschool programs this semester.
Distance learning
Like many others who supervise early childhood and after-school religious programs at MetroWest synagogues, Leah Beker is concerned about students who miss school because of illness playing “catch-up” after returning to class. Beker is director of education at Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston.
“Our kids come from public schools, so if they’re not going to their regular schools all day, they won’t be coming to us,” she told NJ Jewish News. “Our problem will be how to help kids make up what they missed when they were home sick,” the way her after-school program has done during previous outbreaks of childhood illness.
Jac Toporek, executive director of the NJ State Association of Jewish Federations, last week passed on to educators advice from the U.S. Department of Education on distance learning ways to help children out of school for a prolonged period keep up with their lessons. The site also has suggestions for teachers who might be out for a while, including preparing homework assignments and lesson plans that can be accessed on-line.
To consider the potential problems arising from a high rate of absenteeism, Suzanne Wainer, director of professional practice at The Partnership for Jewish Learning and Life of MetroWest, convened one of its regular principals’ forums on Aug. 25 to discuss the prospect of lost days of religious education.
Wainer said she suggested that the principals “call the children to ask how they are feeling and let them know the work they’ve been missing.” She estimated that it could take “a week or two” for many young flu sufferers to get back to class.
Of the 45,926 confirmed swine flu cases in the United States, 436 have been fatal, according to the World Health Organization.
“We certainly do expect the flu to return in the fall,” said Dr. Michael Serlin, chief of infectious diseases at North General Hospital in New York.
“H1N1 doesn’t seem to be any more virulent than any other flu, but because it hasn’t existed until now there’s no vaccine and that’s why it’s spread very fast,” he said.
NJJN staff writer Elaine Durbach and the JTA contributed to this report.
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