The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released its “Guidance for State and Local Public Health Officials and School Administrators for School (K-12) Responses to Influenza during the 2009-2010 School Year.” CDC predicts that schools and health officials can help protect 1/5 of the country’s population from flu by implementing its suggestions. School transportation professionals should be aware:
- Staff members with flu-like illness should be urged to stay home for at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever, or signs of a fever, without the use of fever-reducing medicines.
- Cleaning bus interiors thoroughly would appear to comport with the CDC recommendation that “School staff should routinely clean areas that students and staff touch often with the cleaners they typically use.”
- School administrators are urged to “balance the risks of flu” with the “disruption dismissals will cause in both education and the wider community.”
- While direct impacts on school transportation operations are not addressed in the Guidance, school transportation administrators are, perhaps, in the best position to consider proactively what those impacts may be and discuss them with school district officials.
Peggy Burns is an attorney/consultant with Education Compliance Group, Inc. Peggy can be reached at (888) 604-6141 and by email to ecginc@qwestoffice.net.
