By DEANNA POGORELC
Staff Writer

     Whitley County schools are seeing the effects of the elevated flu activity that has swept the country in recent months as they experience absence rates higher than normal for this time of year.
      While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that individuals with flu-like symptoms stay home until at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever, Whitley County schools have been following a modified guideline from the Whitley County Health Department.
      Dr. Lisa Hatcher recently recommended that students with a probable case of influenza or H1N1 should stay home from school for seven days, and their siblings should stay home for five days.
      The usual absence rate this time of year for area schools is around 4 or 5 percent, depending on the school, according to school administrators.
      Steve Darnell, superintendent for Smith-Green Community Schools, said his school’s absence rates have been around 10 percent.
      Steve Clason, superintendent for Whitko Community Schools, said the most recent absence numbers he saw as of last week were 13 percent at three of Whitko’s schools at 18 percent at the other one.
      Although he couldn’t verify that all of those student absences were due to the flu or H1N1, Clason said he suspected that some of them were also the siblings of sick students who were following Dr. Hatcher’s recommendation to stay home.
      Tony Zickgraf, business and operations manager for Whitley County Consolidated Schools, also cited the health department’s recommendation as a reason for high absence numbers.
      Absences at WWCS schools peaked at almost 25 percent at one elementary school last week but have leveled out around 10 percent since then.
      To prevent the spread of the flu, all three school corporations said they are taking precautions by cleaning common areas more frequently and providing hand sanitizers in the classrooms and lunchrooms.
      Taking the lead from the CDC and the local health department, Zickgraf said the only reason schools would shut down would be if there were not enough staff members or bus drivers to keep them running.
      Although he said he didn’t anticipate that happening, he said the school continues to recommend that students and staff get vaccinated.