Seaholm is taking extra precautions to stop the spread of the flu and prevent Seaholm from closing. In addition to the hand sanitizer dispensers, the Seaholm janitors are following guidelines to further clean the school.
“They’re disinfecting the door knobs and flat surfaces on a regular basis, more that they had been,” said Seaholm Assistant Principal Deb Boyer. “But part of the disinfection is their regular cleaning process anyway.”
Huron Valley Catholic School, a K-8 school in Ypsilanti, about 40 miles from Seaholm, wasn’t so lucky. So many kids from their school caught H1N1 that they closed down for three days, on November 3, 4, and 5. They had the 5th, a Friday, scheduled off already.
“When we left school on Friday October 30… our absent rate was… only about 8 percent,” said Principal Tim Kotyuk. “When we arrived back on Monday November the 2nd, we had 30 percent of our students out.”
Concerned, Kotyuk immediately contacted the county, who strongly recommended that they close for the rest of the week.
“We closed the school, we aired the school out, we did some intensive cleaning, [and] we made sure that students were not in the building,” Kotyuk said.
Kotyuk was happy that they made the decision to close the school. According to him, when they reopened the school on the next Monday, their absent rate was down to seven percent.
Seaholm’s absent rate, however, isn’t high enough for the school to consider closing. According to the district website, Seaholm only had 13 students absent due to H1N1, the flu, or flu-like symptoms on Friday, November 20th.
Nonetheless, students are still worried about catching the flu.
“I’m pretty nervous about the swine flu,” junior Maddie Burg said. “I want to make sure that I don’t share with anyone who has the flu.”
The administration is remaining calm and believes that they are taking the correct action to prevent an outbreak at Seaholm.
“We’re being advised by the CDC, the Center for Disease Control,” Boyer said.
According to the Center for Disease Control, schools will be advised to close if there is a severe safety risk for students.
“If there is a majority of kids getting swine, they need to do something,” Burg said.
But as of now, she added, they’re fine staying open and continuing with what they are doing.
