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 Members of the Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council pose for photo outside the classroom earlier this year. To date, the group has raised nearly $2,300 in which they have donated to various local and area organizations throughout the 2009-2010 school year. Photo provided By KRISTA HAYES
Staff Writer
With the end of the school year nearing, Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council members are hoping to end their term on a positive note.
During the school year, the school government raised nearly $2,300 for various local and area organizations.
“Each year, we try and raise as much money as we can for various clubs and organizations that we vote on and decide to help support at the beginning of the school year,” Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council President Neal Maxson said.
Elected a Student Council representative of his homeroom, Maxson, a seventh-grade student, said this is his second year serving on the council. This year as president, his main responsibility is to set forth an agenda and preside over the group’s monthly meetings which are held the first and third Thursday of each month.
“I joined the Student Council because I was looking for a new activity to do and thought it’d be challenging experience,” Maxson said. “Politics have always been one of the things to stick out in my head and when I grow up, I want to be a lawyer.
“Overall, as president I think I have done a pretty good job,” he said. “Being president is a lot harder than what I thought it would be since I have to make the agendas, run the meetings, and keep the advisers in the loop. I have the whole weight of the council on my shoulders, and at times it can get frustrating, but I would recommend it to all the kids coming to the middle school next year because it’s a fun activity to be involved in.”
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Friday, 06 November 2009 |
By KAREN CAMPBELL
Assistant Managing Editor
Classes in the Wapakoneta City Schools District are to continue as usual, the superintendent said this morning, despite a confirmed case of H1N1.
Parents in the district received a telephone alert Thursday about the student and were advised that the district would be following proper protocol in addressing it.
Superintendent Keith Horner said proper protocol, as advised by the Auglaize County Health Department, includes washing hands frequently and students and staff not coming to school if they have a fever or feel ill.
The infected child, a student at the Wapakoneta Middle School, was not hospitalized as is now required by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to confirm a case, but was tested as part of a random sample done by his local physician, Horner told the Wapakoneta Daily News this morning.
Auglaize County Health Commissioner Charlotte Parsons said this morning that because of a three- to four-week delay in getting results confirmed, this student is no longer infected and back at school.
“H1N1 is pretty much everywhere in the state of Ohio,” Parsons said. “We are assuming that any case of influenza, particularly in those 25 and younger, is H1N1.
“People need to take preventative measures and practice good hygiene until it is gone, which will be a while,” she said. “The most important thing is people who are sick need to stay home.”
She said with vaccine supplies just this week becoming large enough to hold the county’s first clinic, she encouraged everyone to get the H1N1 vaccine when it is available to them as the first line of defense.
Parsons said as more becomes available, possibly as early as next week, they plan to hold additional clinics.
The first is scheduled from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday at New Bremen High School for those in the top priority groups.
“The number of new cases is down from the past two weeks,” Parsons said. “People should still be cautious though. It is still in the county.”
Horner said they plan to continue to monitor attendance rates and perform extra cleaning, particularly to desks and other surface areas.
He said they plan on continuing many of the same practices started last year when there were concerns about the spread of MRSA in the schools, including placing hand sanitizer in every classroom and throughout the buildings and encouraging everyone to use it.
“We don’t plan to put a number or percentage on when we might close school,” Horner said. “Some districts have done that, but our attendance is hanging in there. We have good and bad days.”
He said at its worse, district attendance for a school day has been as low as 94 percent which occurred a couple of weeks ago, but that number jumped back up the next day.
“The information we are getting from the Health Department is to treat it as a typical flu season, with extra emphasis on hand washing and not coming to school with a fever,” Horner said. “We are doing that, but it does seem more people are getting it.”
In a letter that went home to parents Oct. 1, Horner advised that the flu can spread easily from person to person and the district is taking steps to reduce its spread in Wapakoneta City Schools.
“We want to keep the school open to students and functioning in a normal manner,” Horner said, asking for parents’ assistance in doing so.
Working closely with the Ohio Department of Education and the Auglaize County Health Department to monitor flu conditions and make decisions about the best steps to take, Horner said they would be keeping parents updated with new information as it becomes available.
He recommended parents assist in keeping children healthy by teaching them to wash their hands often with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand rub and not to share personal items such as drinks or food and to cover their coughs and sneezes using an elbow or tissue instead of a hand.
Symptoms of the flu include a fever of 100 degrees or higher, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache and extreme tiredness. Some people also may vomit or have diarrhea.
Horner said children who are sick with these symptoms should be kept home for at least 24 hours after they no longer have fever or signs of fever without using fever-reducing drugs.
“By keeping children with a fever at home, they will reduce the number of people who may get infected,” Horner said.
He said any children determined to be sick while at school will be sent home.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 09 November 2009 )
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