LEWISTON — To prevent outbreaks of flu in Lewiston public schools, all 5,000 students will be offered a flu shot in September, the School Committee voted Monday night.

When the vaccine becomes available in October, plans call for it to be offered to all students. Permission slips will be sent home to parents. Each of the two slips will be on colored paper to prevent the forms from getting lost in backpacks.
Neither vaccination will be given without approval from parents, Lewiston schools Human Resources Director Tom Jarvis told School Committee members.

Dr. Dora Mills, head of Maine’s Center for Disease Control, has recommended all schools vaccinate students with both the regular and swine flu shots, predicting the transmission rate for the virus will increase this fall, and people under 25 are at greatest risk.

“School-age kids are the highest risk” for swine flu, Maine Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said. “All school-age children are encouraged to have the vaccinations. We’re working with the schools now. Half the schools have already signed up.”

The swine flu vaccine to combat the H1N1 virus is expected to become available in October, but doctors recommend people first have the regular flu shot. Maine has 190,000 students in grades K-12. Large school clinics are needed because vaccinating 190,000 in a few weeks “would overtax the health care community.”

Lewiston schools would give the shots during the week of Sept. 21, Jarvis said. A team of visiting nurses will go from school to school administering the shots with help from the school nurses.

Jarvis estimates that one third of Lewiston students will accept the shots, another third will get vaccinations from their own doctor, and another third will go without.

Dr. Douglas G. Smith, the physician for Lewiston and Auburn schools, said there are several reasons why all students should have the vaccinations.

“The regular influenza may be more severe this year. Young children are more susceptible. We do have several thousand  children across the country who do get very ill from the traditional influenza,” Smith said. The community as a whole ought to have widespread vaccination, he said, because the more who get the shots will be less likely to get sick and spread that sickness to others.

Schoolwide vaccinations haven’t been given since the 1960s, when children were immunized against polio and smallpox. Since then, other vaccinations have been given in schools, “but not in a widespread manner,” Smith said.

Smith hopes parents allow their children to be immunized and take other necessary precautions seriously. Those include not sharing cups and bottles, washing hands often and thoroughly, sneezing in tissues or sleeves, and staying home when sick.

Parents who don’t vaccinate their children run a greater risk their child could get sick and would have to stay out of school for days. That would mean parents would be out of work for days, Smith said.

Enrollment up

In other business, Superintendent Leon Levesque said there are 4,898 K-12 students this year. “That’s up 60 to 70, not counting (new) pre-K students.”

Much of the growth is in the early grades. “This is the largest kindergarten class ever,” he said. There’ll be about 420 kindergarten students, compared to the less than 400. In early grades at several schools “we’re full,” Levesque said.

At the new Geiger elementary school, Levesque recommended adding another kindergarten class to avoid those classes having 30 students. Committee members approved the move.