Flu cases are surging across the country, with the CDC estimating at least 15 million illnesses, 180,000 hospitalizations, and 7,400 deaths so far this season. Parents in Fayette County are trying to figure out when to keep sick children home without risking truancy.
The CDC says this is the worst flu outbreak in 25 years, and Fayette County Schools have seen more students staying home sick since November. Attendance Director Cynthia Hedrick said, “We started the year off actually doing really well up until about November and November. We’ve seen a spike in absences.”
Hedrick explained that schools are working with families and nurses to track illnesses and connect students to care. “The CDC says, you know, if your child has has a fever, they don’t need to be at school. If a child’s vomited more than twice in 24 hours, they don’t need to be at school.”
Fayette County Schools offer in-school wellness centers through partners like New River Health, available to all students regardless of insurance. “We are very fortunate in that county that we have wellness centers available to our students, to our families, to the employees. And, you know, as long as the parent has completed the paperwork that goes with that, their child can see that provider,” Hedrick said. “If the provider says that, you know, the child needs to go home, then that child goes home with an excuse to absence because the provider turns that into the school.”
There is no limit on the number of doctor’s excuses a child can have, and parents can submit up to ten notes per year for illnesses. Unexcused absences reach the truancy threshold at ten.
Schools have online portals that make promptly submitting excuses easier. Hedrick said, “As a parent now, if the child is sick, you can write that note and have it turned in within three days of return and it gets coded and we also created the online portal because when the legislature changed the law for attendance to that three days, we thought, how are we going to try to help our families?”
