By Carol Chmelynski
5/6/03 -- Now that the SARS epidemic is beginning to wind down in Toronto, school officials are finally breathing a sigh of relief.
Over the past month, the district has undertaken extensive communications efforts to allay parents' concerns -- and even temporarily closed a couple of schools as precautionary measures, says Superintendent Maureen Kaukinen.
The SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak has peaked and is on the decline in Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore, but not in China, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared April 29.
Outside Asia, Canada has seen the most SARS cases with 148 cases and 20 deaths -- the large majority in Toronto -- as of April 30, according to WHO. Worldwide, the disease has stuck 5,663 people and caused 211 deaths. There have been no SARS-related deaths in the United States.
"First and foremost our message was that kids should come to school, and if we had any reason to feel that they were at risk, we would take every measure to ensure that they wouldn't be," Kaukinen says. The Toronto school system serves 270,000 students in 560 schools.
In March, the district formed a SARS committee chaired by Kaukinen that consists of an interdisciplinary team of communications and health people.
Toronto Public Health provided a staff member that school officials could call any time -- day or night. "With that kind of amazing support, we were able to follow up every concern or query that came in," Kaukinen says. The district already had a system in place for teachers to report "occurrences of strange or unusual things."
In cooperation with Toronto Public Health, the school district provided a series of questions and answers for parents and fact sheets translated into 12 languages. The information was sent to parents and posted on the district's Web site.
David Reed, director of education for the district, also sent letters and fact sheets to parents, and the district set up a hotline.
Kaukinen says that she can count the number of district staff who were quarantined on one hand. "We made provisions for them to be looked after as far as being paid and so on," she says. And "a very small number" of students have been absent. "We ended up closing five schools for a variety of reasons."
On March 25, the district took the precautionary measure of closing David Lewis Public School for two days, after learning that three 5-year-olds and a staff member had unexplained fevers. The building was disinfected, and it was found that SARS was not responsible for any of the illnesses.
On April 9, the Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute was closed as a precautionary measure related to SARS, and students were advised to undergo a 10-day quarantine.
As an added precaution, the district also temporarily closed John Buchan Senior Public School, which shares common facilities with Stephen Leacock, but those students were not quarantined.
"So only for very short times were students out of school. When in doubt we took the imitative of closing where we had good reason through Toronto Public Health to do so," says Kaukinen.
As it turned out, no students had SARS, she says, but "there were parents who were concerned, and they called superintendents and principals about what they should do."
No U.S. students were found to have SARS either, but concerns about the illness led to cautionary measures in several districts. Weathersfield School District in Youngstown, Ohio, closed its 1,100-student district April 28, after 39 students and adults visited Toronto. Classes resumed the next day.
"None of the band students or chaperones showed any signs of SARS, but two school board members received five or six calls each from worried parents requesting that the schools be closed," says Superintendent Rocco Adduci.
Adduci says there was a bit of an overreaction going on, with some parents even requesting the district close for the year. Adduci says he checked with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which recommended classes resume because the SARS cases in Canada are limited to people involved with health care.
Nurses at New Rochelle (N.Y.) High School and two middle schools in the district were busy April 29 taking temperatures of students who might have been exposed to a girl who has shown signs of SARS. The girl is recovering at home and attendance is back to normal, says spokesperson Maggie Skau.
The district sent letters April 29 to all parents in the 11,000-student district saying there was "no cause for alarm."
A kindergartner at Lula J. Edge Elementary School in Niceville, Fla., was being treated for SARS symptoms at home, after his grandmother had traveled to Asia and was suspected of having SARS. The child is back in school after the term of isolation required by the health department, says spokesperson Cindy Dooley.