Public school students have missed fewer days of class in recent weeks, a possible sign that swine flu may be on the downturn in Lee County.
“I’m thinking it’s starting to level off a bit,” said Sharon Warnecke, health services coordinator for Lee schools. “On the last conference call with the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), they were saying the same thing.”
In response to a public records request from Chalkboard, the school district provided daily absentee rates for the 2009-10 school year. On average, 95.2 percent of children are present during roll call, a rate that’s about average compared to previous years. Week 4 had the highest absentee rate, with an average of 5,005 students missing each day. Last week, Week 12, saw 3,678 children absent per day.
Below are the daily absentee numbers:
WEEK 1
• Aug. 24: 369
• Aug. 25: 1,079
• Aug. 26: 1,574
• Aug. 27: 1,856
• Aug. 28: 2,242
WEEK 2
• Aug. 31: 3,154
• Sept. 1: 2,970
• Sept. 2: 2,905
• Sept. 3: 3,108
• Sept. 4: 4,003
WEEK 3
• Sept. 7: Holiday
• Sept. 8: 5,093
• Sept. 9: 4,548
• Sept. 10: 4,162
• Sept. 11: 4,692
WEEK 4
• Sept. 14: 5,208
• Sept. 15: 4,966
• Sept. 16: 4,523
• Sept. 17: 4,628
• Sept. 18: 5,703
WEEK 5
• Sept. 21: 5,482
• Sept. 22: 4,712
• Sept. 23: 4,293
• Sept. 24: 4,840
• Sept. 25: Hurricane make-up day
WEEK 6
• Sept. 28: Yom Kippur
• Sept. 29: 4,736
• Sept. 30: 4,388
• Oct. 1: 4,156
• Oct. 2: 4,522
WEEK 7
• Oct. 5: 4,675
• Oct. 6: 3,957
• Oct. 7: 3,773
• Oct. 8: 3,741
• Oct. 9: 4,719
WEEK 8
• Oct. 12: 5,343
• Oct. 13: 4,280
• Oct. 14: 4,034
• Oct. 15: 3,993
• Oct. 16: 4,851
WEEK 9
• Oct. 19: 4,988
• Oct. 20: 3,714
• Oct. 21: 3,559
• Oct. 22: 3,733
• Oct. 23: 4,341
WEEK 10
• Oct. 26: 4,347
• Oct. 27: 3,622
• Oct. 28: 3,730
• Oct. 29: Professional duty day
• Oct. 30: Hurricane make-up day
WEEK 11
• Nov. 2: 4,709
• Nov. 3: 3,415
• Nov. 4: 3,012
• Nov. 5: 3,164
• Nov. 6: 3,934
WEEK 12
• Nov. 9: 3,934
• Nov. 10: 3,566
• Nov. 11: Veterans Day
• Nov. 12: 3,346
• Nov. 13: 3,864
* (Note: A separate enrollment report lists 81,640 students as of Nov. 17. Those numbers were used to calculate attendance rates cited above.)
The News-Press has created a special Web page with swine flu resources. Click HERE to connect. There, you can find a current list of swine flu clinics in Lee County, mass vaccination events that Warnecke says have gone off without a hitch, from an organizational standpoint and for the public — no pushing, no shoving and few glitches.
“The way the community has come together for the swine flu clinics is something I’ve never seen since 1978, when I moved to Lee County,” Warnecke said. “It was absolutely incredible.”
