• fever    * It’s important to note that not everyone with flu will have a fever
• cough
• sore throat
• runny or stuffy nose
• body aches
• headache
• chills
• fatigue
• sometimes diarrhea and vomiting

Please keep your child home from school and other community activites when they may have the flu.

Call the school's student absence reporting line (425-6688) each day you decide to keep your student home. By indicating if you think they may have the flu, it will help us track if there is a "cluster" so that we can monitor other children in that group more closely. The opening page of the Health Office link has recommendations to help you decide when to keep your student home.

You do not have to take your child to the doctor when they have the signs and symptoms of the flu, but here is the state's recommendation for the Emergency Room:"The emergency room should be used for people who are very sick. You should not go to the emergency room if you are only mildly ill. If you have the emergency warning signs of flu sickness, you should go to the emergency room. If you get sick with flu symptoms and are at high risk of flu complications or you are concerned about your illness, call your health care provider for advice. If you go to the emergency room and you are not sick with the flu, you may catch it from people who do have it". What are these warning signs?

"In children

• Fast breathing or trouble breathing
• Bluish skin color
• Not drinking enough fluids
• Not waking up or not interacting
• Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
• Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
• Fever with a rash"

A standard for returning to school after being home sick is to be fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medications. Another is that they have the ability to handle their hygiene, in accordance to their symptoms. An example is knowing to cough into their sleeve; another is understanding and consistently using good procedure to care for a runny nose, including hand hygiene after dealing with nasal discharge. Please feel free to call me at the Health Office (425-6644) if you have any questions or special requests for your child's return.

With hopes of health and wellness for all,

Karla Boemig, RN, MS