In the past three weeks, five schools in Howard County have reported double-digit absentee rates, and school officials said it's due mostly to symptoms of the H1N1 virus. Officials also said the number of absent students is unusually high for October.

"We usually don't see these kind of absences this time of year," said Donna Heller, coordinator of Health Services for the county's public schools.

By comparison, last year, six Howard County schools had double-digit absentee rates during the peak seasonal flu months of December and January. They had no such rates during September or October.

"This is unusual," Heller said.

The highest number of absent students came one day two weeks ago, schools spokeswoman Patti Caplan said, when 25 percent of the students at Mayfield Woods Middle in Elkridge stayed home from school.

Heller said students are missing school because they have symptoms of H1N1, the so-called swine flu. But she said she believes the high rate of students missing that day from Mayfield Woods was also due to a gastrointestinal illness.

Other schools with higher than 10 percent absentee rates were: Long Reach and Oakland Mills high schools, in Columbia; Ellicott Mills Middle School, in Ellicott City; and Mount View Middle, in Marriottsville.

Each had a day with between 10 percent and 15 percent absences, Heller said. Both Veterans and Mount View had more than 10 percent of their students absent earlier this week. Long Reach had to cancel a field hockey game Friday night, Oct. 2, because of the absences.

Across the Howard County line in Laurel, St. Vincent Pallotti High School shut down for the day Oct. 7 because some 100 students, about 20 percent of the student population, were out sick Oct. 6. Principal Stephen Edmonds said only five of the absent students were confirmed swine flu cases, while the rest stayed home "for a variety of reasons."

The school planned to use the day to have a cleaning company "disinfect all common surfaces which will give us a fresh clean start on Thursday," Edmonds said in an announcement posted on the school's Web site.

About 20 percent of Pallotti's students live in Howard County.

For the most part, the absentee rates at Howard County schools have come down as quickly as they went up in affected schools, Caplan said.

This article has been updated.

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user comments (2)

user independent says...

If no H1N1 test was given, please do not report that the students are absent due to H1N1. In the absence of testing, absentee cause is conjecture whether by doctors or others, but not factual in any case.

Posted 6:53 AM, 10.06.09 | Permalink

user arnhead says...

What? You expect facts from reporters? That never happens. No one would read a story that said that students were absent from school.

Posted 7:12 AM, 10.06.09 | Permalink