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Luckily for the Onalaska School District, students had a four-day weekend and didn’t come to school because of parent-teacher conferences. Otherwise, there could have been a lot more empty desks for teachers to face.
On Friday, Oct. 19, 226, or 25 percent of OHS students, reported being ill with the flu. Because of the large number of students ill, the OHS marching band had to cancel its scheduled participation in the Wisconsin State Music Association marching band competition over the weekend.
But, by Wednesday morning, the number had dropped dramatically to 55 or 6.2 percent of high school students.
Onalaska Superintendent John Burnett said school officials had hope those four days would give students time to recover and break the cycle of contagion, and even though the break was planned long in advance, it worked.
Unfortunately, the reverse happened at the middle school. Last Thursday, 10.9 percent of Onalaska Middle School students were sick. When school re-opened Wednesday, 120, or 18.8 percent of students, were out due to flu-like illnesses. The next highest school struck was Irving Pertzsch which had 14.6 percent of students out Wednesday and Eagle Bluff had 11 percent of students sick with flu-like symptoms.
In Holmen, Pupil Services Director Rick Johnson said it was the middle school getting hit. On Tuesday, Oct. 20, 18 percent of middle school students were out due to flu symptoms. In addition, 4 percent of district staff were out.
Other Holmen schools were less affected: between 5 percent and 7 percent of students were out.
Johnson said students who were being sent home ill were wearing masks; otherwise they have not asked the general student body to wear them. He also said there have been no discussions of closing schools.
“When we get to 20 percent (absent), we’ll start talking about it and work with La Crosse County Public Health in an advisory capacity before we made any decision,” Johnson said.
The Holmen School district sent out a bulletin to parents on Friday. “We told them we’re experiencing an increase in students being ill,” Johnson said. “And we’re reminding them to encourage their children to practice good personal hygiene and universal precautions.”
Burnett said the message that has changed to parents over the last few months is that closing schools would be a last resort instead of a first resort. He also said school closing decisions would be made in concert with the La Crosse County Public Health Department.
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