Making The Grade: How Central Texas schools mitigate effects of dreaded flu season

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - It is that time of year when the weather cools and the fevers soar.

Coughing, sneezing, and that run-down feeling that both adults and their children are no stranger to.

It’s the dreaded cold and flu season.

Rhiannon Settles, Director for Health Services with Waco ISD, said students often drop by the nurse’s office in the mornings quite a bit.

Local schools said they are doing their best to keep track of what’s making students sick and trying to minimize the spread.

Waco ISD has full-time nurses on 20 of its 24 campuses.

Settles said she gets a weekly report from her staff noting the number and type of parent-reported illnesses that have popped up.

For example, last week the district recorded four strep, four Covid, and one Flu case.

Settles’ department keeps that information in-house, and if cases rise to alarming numbers, she alerts the local health department for input.

The next step in the process is sanitizing.

“So, if we see an increased number of any particular contagious illness. So, it can be Flu, RSV, Strep, we’ve had a lot of tummy bugs so far this year. So, if there’s one classroom or 1 team or certain area of the school that we’re seeing a lot of cases and we’ll get that area deep cleaned.”

Settles said her janitorial staff has been using hospital grade disinfectant since before the pandemic.

Still, many across the region learned a lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic and taking regular precautionary steps to keep their schools and students healthy.

Chilton ISD Superintendent Brandon Hubbard said, being a much smaller district of just under 600 students in a town of about 900, it’s noticeable if even a few students are out sick.

So it had taken deep cleaning a step further and hired outside help.

“When you have 40 kids in a grade level and you have 4 or 5 that are out, you really being to feel it and notice it pretty quickly.”

This district has experience with being forced to cancel classes because of illnesses, which he said is a tough call to make.

To avoid that situation, it has created partnerships.

One is with a company called GermBlast out of Lubbock.

Every quarter, a team comes in and cleans the biofilm, which is a nasty layer of micro-organisms.

It disinfects using an electrostatic sprayer, then the team seals the surface.

“We have a product called Germblast Shield and what it is, is it’s basically a microscopic barrier between the surface and germs. So, anything that lands on that surface is protected and destroyed over time. So, it doesn’t really allow the growth of anymore bacteria while it’s on there and viruses as well.”

Jordan Barboza with GermBlast said, “Whenever you step into a building you actually kick up microparticles of dust and what’s in that dust. It’s germs, harmful pathogens that can really impact a student. "

He added, crew measures the level of germs on surfaces before and after treatment.

The shoot for zero, however number before treatment can start high in the thousands.

“I’ve personally gone on disinfection jobs or job sites and have a toy in a daycare that a baby had been playing with reading at about 5,000.”

During the last GermBlast visit to Chilton, the highest values were on the buses and in the front office on the counter.

Learning that, the schools’ janitorial staff can focus on those areas.

Schools and their partners also battle these nasty bugs with education, teaching children about proper handwashing.

Chilton has another partnership in its medicine cabinet.

It’s with Goodyear Health where unlike larger districts, it has the ability to swab students to test them for the Flu, COVID, Strep, and other viruses.

The nurse can also facilitate a virtual visit with one of its doctors to get a prescription called in for its students.

For a rural district that’s about 35 miles from a parent’s job or a doctor’s office this clinic on campus is convenient.

Hubbard said he has taken advantage of the clinic.

There’s one more course of action school’s take, it’s keeping parents informed especially about the latest policy change.

Over the summer, the Board of Nursing came out with a policy that requires a doctor’s note and parent permission to administer over-the-counter medication at school.

Before, they could dole out a dose of children’s Tylenol if the parent dropped it off.

Now, the doctor must note in his or her order that the child can take OTC’s as directed by the bottle.

And, the medication must be in its original container and not expired.

Settles said, “Something that we have to do to protect our campus nurses’ licenses. They can’t practice outside of their scope. So, we started pushing out messaging through parent square through campus newsletters, social media making sure that parents were ready for this and I understand it is an extra step that they have to go.”

She added, local doctors are aware of the change and are taking steps to make writing those general orders easier.

All of these efforts take a little extra time, attention, and for some money.

The high-tech GermBlast cleaning, according to Hubbard, is about $20k per year.

Some argue, you can’t put a cost on the health and safety of the kids.

Hubbard said his district has an attendance rate of about 97% now.

Nurses across the region agree, parents should keep their kids home if they have a fever, diarrhea, or vomiting.

Settles added, parents can even call their campus nurse for advice, if they are unsure of whether its time to see a doctor.

This time of year, local health departments start pushing a message to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Waco ISD offers vaccines to its staff and later this year, will offer an after-school vaccine clinic for parents and students.

It plans to offer flu and COVID shots.

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