Absenteeism breaks 50 per cent at St. Louis Elementary

ST. LOUIS - A Pleasant View mother of four says it was a 'no brainer' to pull her two children out of St. Louis Elementary after more than half of the entire school's population came down with the swine flu.
Tishie Shea said her four-year-old daughter, Madison, suffers from seizures and Shea was terrified her two elementary-aged children, Ashley, 9, and Connor, 7, may come home with the highly contagious H1N1. Her oldest son, 12-year-old Bradley, already caught the flu. He's a student at M.E. Callaghan Intermediate in Woodvale.
"The thing that scares me the most is Madison," Shea said from her Pleasant View home.
"If she ever got a fever that we couldn't control, it could be deadly for her."
St. Louis Elementary is a small, close-knit school in the western part of P.E.I. with a dubious distinction.
It is a sick school.
St. Louis has the highest absenteeism rate due to swine flu in the province.
On Monday, more than 47 per cent of the students were out sick. That climbed on Tuesday to more than 52 per cent.
Dale Sabean, superintendent of the Western School Board, said he's at a loss to explain why St. Louis is being hit so hard by swine flu. He said about 20 to 25 children at St. Louis, much like other schools, are healthy but their parents are keeping them home because of fears of swine flu.
There are now 29 schools reporting an outbreak of swine flu, which means 10 per cent of the school population is sick. That's down from 35 schools on Monday.
Only two schools are reporting absenteeism rates above 30 per cent, including St. Louis and O'Leary Elementary.
O'Leary has 30.1 per cent sick.
Despite the numbers, Sabean said schools will stay open and parents are being urged to send their children to school as long as they are healthy.
"There is no magic number," said Sabean.
"It's more a function of our ability to staff the school than it is any particular percentage of students absent."
There are 151 students and staff at St. Louis Elementary.
There were 71 out sick on Monday and 79 missing on Tuesday.
There were only three students in Grade 4.
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