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"We're obviously encouraging hand washing to all students, but having the dispensers at areas where we have large groups of students assembling should help," she said, adding that maintenance crews also are doubling their efforts to keep the schools clean.
The H1N1 alert system, known as SchoolReach, is being offered free to any public or private school that does not already have a mass notification system in place.
VanLeer said the district will eventually have that capability with its new phone system, but until then she's looking into the call blast offered by MSBA. Schools will have the ability to personally create the recording to be sent out, but SchoolReach staff will manage the launch process.
Only calls involving H1N1 alerts, policy, directives, school closing or reopening, or other related matters is allowed under the free program.
"Right now we don't have the means to communicate on a large-scale in a short time period of time so this is a great program for us," she said.
"It would only be used for emergency purposes and not to relay a single outbreak," she said. "But if, for instance, attendance was so poor or the virus so prevalent we had to close a school this would be one way we could get the word out."
VanLeer told the board she recently attended a meeting sponsored by the Cooperating School Districts on H1N1 and has been in communication with Franklin County Health officials about the issue.
"School-age children are the most vulnerable which has created a lot of concern for schools and the virus is more contagious," she said. "The virus could result in some school closings, but health officials are not necessarily recommending that. The most important thing is that anyone who is sick stay home."
VanLeer said all school officials are waiting anxiously to learn when a vaccine will be available and how it will be distributed.
The district is open to having one or more of its schools serve as vaccine clinic sites if the health department asks, she told the board. Those clinics would must likely be open on Saturdays.
"That's the thought now, but we don't know how much vaccine would even be available initially or how it will be disbursed," she stressed. "A lot of the information is changing daily so we will keep you posted."
Vaccine Update
Federal health officials said the swine flu vaccine will arrive the first week of October and more doses will be available than previously thought - between 6 million and 7 million doses, according to the Associated Press.
That's roughly double earlier predictions, and most will be the nasal spray version called FluMist, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.
Lots of flu shots will soon follow: About 40 million vaccine doses will arrive by mid-October, with between 10 million and 20 million more arriving each week, she said.
The government wants people most at risk from swine flu - or the 2009 H1N1 strain - to be first in line for the initial doses. They include pregnant women, the young - from age 6 months to 24 years, and people younger than 64 who have flu-risky conditions such as asthma.
One caution: That first-arriving FluMist is only for healthy people ages 2 to 49, so many of the high-risk will need to watch for the shot version.
