Attendance still strong at Oxford Hills School District

PARIS — Attendance rates in the Oxford Hills School District have remained strong despite continuing outbreaks of flu-like symptoms among students and staff, an official said Thursday.

"So far, the attendance is OK," district head nurse Ann Johnson said. The attendance rate was above 85 percent, she said, although lately she was seeing more students and staff getting sick.

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention requires school districts to notify it if the absentee rate is above 15 percent.

Bethel was the only town in Oxford County listed this week by the CDC as having a high rate of influenza-like illness. Gould Academy was struck hard with the H1N1 flu several weeks ago.

Johnson said the Oxford Hills School District was in the process of completing its first round of H1N1 vaccine clinics. Some of the 1,800 students expected to be injected were absent at the time of the school clinics and others decided at the last minute that they wanted to be vaccinated, she said.

Students under the age of 10 who were vaccinated will have to receive a "booster" shot, a second shot of the vaccine, to ensure it is effective. Johnson said the Maine CDC hopes to have the supply of booster vaccines to schools across the state in early December.

  She said the district had some of its 1,800 doses of vaccine left over because some of the vaccine that came in vials with 10 needles had remaining vaccine once the first 10 injections were given.

"They always put extra in. If you're careful you can pull out more than 10 doses," Johnson said. "It worked to our benefit."

  She said the extra vaccine, which she had not yet counted, would be offered to the Christian Academy and Boxberry schools, who do not have vaccine, once all of the Oxford Hills School District students are inoculated.

Johnson said only a few students had adverse reactions, including fevers. 

ldixon@sunjournal.com