Coping with AH1N1 in the school setting

CEBU, Philippines - From SARS , BIRD Flu to AH1N1,   Cebu International School Superintendent Deidre Fischer writes on how to cope with global diseases in the context of today’s mobile student population.

Having lived and worked through SARS, Avian Flu, Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (Mongolia) and now AH1N1 (Swine Flu) in the span of seven years, I have seen how these events can impact on the delivery of education in our schools. It has provided a new challenge to us, as educators, to work out how we can still provide an education to students while we battle the “crisis.” For those of us who work in education, more so in international schools who have a vast number of expatriate students and families traveling regularly, the risk of the spread of disease appears to be higher. However for each country, with the dynamics of the different schools that I have worked in, we have had different variables and that has provided its own unique perspective to the problem facing schools of how they can continue to operate.

I would recommend coming up with a “Decision Making Protocol for Infectious Diseases” that determines what to do in different parts of the school community depending on the level of risk in the local environment. This has worked effectively and has been useful for the different countries I have lived and worked in.

The major issue that I have found in my experience in being a school administrator is managing the fear generated by the hype surrounding the disease. It is extremely important that the school administration ensure that they obtain as much information as possible from the appropriate sources, and ensure that they maintain communication with their school community. In all my experiences, this has proven effective with the majority of those I have worked with, however you will still find some individuals who are unable to cope in such situations, and again, as a school administrator, you need to be ready to deal with this group, as they still require your support and understanding. As a teacher and administrator, my major priority has always been the safety of all the children in my care and this has been a golden rule that I have consistently applied throughout my career. As head of a school, another rule has been added, in that I always ask myself, “what is best for the school?”

While the situations I have lived and worked through have not been easy, I have learned from each experience and will continue to do so, as the world increasingly throws up such challenges to us, as educators, and how we can then ensure the continuity of education to our students.