Saline Schools Superintendent Scot Graden has been blogging as a way to easily communicate with those in his district. So when a few children fell ill from the H1N1 novel flu virus, it seemed a natural extension to begin a blog about it.

That blog has now become a part of Saline’s strategy for quickly getting news out to parents and students should H1N1 - commonly known as the swine flu - become an issue again during the fast approaching school year.

“We don’t want to spread fear and hype, but we want to make sure we’re communicating,” Graden said.

Local schools say they’re rebuilding their emergency contact lists and stocking up on hand sanitizer and face masks. They're launching public awareness campaigns and telling parents to be watchful for symptoms and willing to keep their children home if they become ill.

For the past few weeks, school officials have been meeting on a regular basis with Washtenaw County to get updates; they plan to offer daily updates on how many children are out sick when school resumes next week.

Schools are working with local hospitals and public health professionals at a level officials say hasn’t happened before as they make preparations for the anticipated resurgence of a pandemic flu in Washtenaw County.

“We don’t know when it’s going to happen - earlier or later - and we want to be as vigilant as possible,” said Diana Torres-Burgos, the county's medical director. “Usually schools are reflective of what we would start seeing in a community.”

WHAT HAPPENED THIS SPRING

When the H1N1 virus began circulating in the United States, several local schools began reporting students who were ill. Ann Arbor's Father Gabriel Richard High School announced it would close for a week in early May after two students fell ill with the flu.

Experts say the flu will likely begin to spread quickly at the beginning of the school season because children will be spending much of their time in close gathering spaces like classrooms and cafeterias. Many children share food and drinks and fail to wash their hands enough or cover their coughs and sneezes.

“Every local health department has been meeting with their schools, their businesses, their faith groups, their colleges and universities, especially in Washtenaw County,” said state epidemiologist Eden Wells. “We know we’ve had a first wave of the flu, we’ve had a bit of a reprieve … but when schools reopen, we’ll have young people in congregate settings again where the flu could pop up again.”

This flu virus has acted differently from other flu viruses, which usually impact the older population the most severely. People younger than 24 were most likely to catch the flu and have complications, while those older than 65 were more likely to avoid catching it, Wells said.

The added concern for this virus isn’t due to the number of people becoming ill - it's because of the extreme severity of symptoms in a small number of patients and the unpredictable nature of a virus that impacts different demographics than traditional seasonal flu.

The flu season usually starts as early as October and can last through April. But this flu didn't die off over the summer and continued to cause outbreaks in local summer camps, Torres-Burgos said.

“We know the virus is still in our community,” she said.

Swine flu was first detected in Mexico in April and circulated the globe in weeks. Between mid-June and mid-August, 110 probable cases were reported in Washtenaw County, and more than 3,300 were reported in the state of Michigan. Officials warn that those numbers likely aren't close to actual numbers because most who become ill with the flu never have a reason to report it.

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE SCHOOLS

As a federally-subsidized vaccine for H1N1 becomes available in mid-October, schools are preparing to be the main place where children get vaccinated.

Children are among the priority groups to receive the vaccine, which is a different from the seasonal flu vaccine also being recommended by health officials.

But the county still isn't sure how many doses of the vaccine it will receive and at what rate it will get them.

Ann Arbor school district spokeswoman Liz Margolis said a large part of her job has become monitoring the regular updates from the county and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, then communicating those changes to parents and students. A school nurse likely will be dedicated part-time to following updates with H1N1, she said.

An initial email will go out to parents this week, she said.

Following CDC recommendations, parents are being asked to keep children home if they have flu-like symptoms. Staff are being told to stay home if they're ill and shouldn't return until they can keep a fever down for at least 24 hours without medication - a process that could take up to five days.

“We understand the burden this puts on families, but it’s the only way to contain any sort of sickness,” Margolis said.

Schools also have been asked to create isolation rooms for children who have flu symptoms at school.

In the Saline district, the designated isolation rooms have doors to the outside of the building so students won’t walk through the halls or pass other children when they leave, Graden said.

In Ann Arbor, the school’s health clinics - which have cots - will likely serve as the isolation rooms, Margolis said. The CDC recommends sick children wear a mask to prevent spreading the illness, but Margolis said the district likely will only ask adults caring for them to wear masks while they're in the room. They might be asked to wear masks as they walk the halls of the building.

Local districts are still waiting for guidance from the county about when to cancel classes due to illnesses. The CDC suggests school closures as the last possible resort, saying it often causes parents to find day care elsewhere and could lead to further spreading of the virus. 

Local public schools begin the day after Labor Day - Sept. 8.

“We’re all dressed up and ready to go, but we won’t know more for three to four weeks when we get all the kids back,” Graden said.

WHAT’S HAPPENING ON CAMPUS

With students set to move in this week, officials at the University of Michigan know they’ll have to hit them fast with a clear message about avoiding the virus and isolating themselves if the get sick.

"When you're talking about taking people from cities all over the country and putting them into close living quarters, we think people are going to be at high risk for infection," said Robert Ernst, director of the U-M's University Health Service.

University campuses already in their fall semesters are reporting numerous cases. The University of Alabama had more than 50 flu cases reported on the first day of classes last week. At Texas Christian University, 10 students were diagnosed with swine flu on the first day of class Monday.

U-M is working to make sure students know they can come to the health service if they're extremely sick. Officials also trying to reserve assistance and antiviral medications like Tamiflu for the sickest of patients.

The health service is prepared to extend its hours and postpone routine exams if it's overwhelmed by sick students, Ernst said.

County officials have said when the vaccine becomes available in mid-October, it will be dispensed at local universities.

WHAT THE COUNTY IS RECOMMENDING

The most important thing local residents can do, officials say, is to isolate themselves if they become sick. For instance, students can get food delivery arranged in the residence halls and will be given masks to wear in hallways and bathrooms, Ernst said.

Officials are encouraging residents, particularly those younger than 24, to get the vaccine that's been created for H1N1, in addition to the seasonal flu vaccine.

“People need to understand it’s not a new process,” from the production of the seasonal flu shot that’s administered every year, Torres-Burgos said. “It’s just a strain change, and the safety regulations are being followed.”

Residents - particularly parents - are being urged to be aware, but not panic if their child becomes ill, Torres-Burgos said.

“They’re really not being asked to do anything differently from what they’d do with the seasonal flu,” she said.

Photo 1: Liz Margolis, director of communications for Ann Arbor Public Schools, sifts through 5,000 H1N1 Influenza posters at the school district headquarters Thursday afternoon. (Lon Horwedel | Ann Arbor.com)

Photo 2: Carl Evers of Hamilton, Ohio, gets an experimental H1N1 Flu vaccine shot for children from Tammy Lewis-McCauley at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. (AP Photo/ Ernest Coleman, The Cincinnati Enquirer)

Tina Reed can be reached at tinareed@annarbor.com or find her on twitter at www.twitter.com/treedinaa. The Associated Press contributed to this report.