SMS Attendance and local DHB's

[Matt Strickland]

Hi all,

Not sure if anyone is following the local issue here with Havelock North's water supply however there is discussion about why school attendance, particularly the tracking of unusual absentee numbers isn't linked/tracked to local DHB's for monitoring of potential health issues.

There are a few outside indicators but with the general population a mass water contamination is likely to affect children and elderly first (of them the younger and older) but certainly noticeable at secondary level.

For the most part, those who are unwell stay at home, so unusual numbers visiting the GP doesn't raise red flags initially.

I can see one change that could help without data sharing, is that those SMS providers have some mathematical alert by looking at those physically marked absent, or a higher percentage marked sick/medical. It could alert the attendance officer that the numbers are unusual, and to call to notify the local health board about an unusually high absentee rate.

We already use eAR tracking, we also use early notification (so the teacher is required to mark Period 1 attendance) so alerts can be sent to parents for safety measures, however this could also be used to notify DHB's automatically if such a system was put in place.

I think schools as a community could play an important role in detection of widespread yet localised illness to give the authorities a warning that something could be wrong.

Whatever the outcome I suspect there will be some link between student absenteeism and health authorities in the future.

Matt

[Alistair Baird]

We get a lot for colds that seem to come in waves, and there is always a lot sick on the day of swimming sports (??), so an automatic response is probably not called for, but a "human" attendance office can make a phone call. I would always be suspect of an automated alert that it actually gets through - we seem to have random issues with Kamar sending out the absentee text's - that may be elinks though.

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Alistair Baird

IT Manager

St Peters College 

p 06 354 4198

m 021 990 259

e bai...@stpeterspn.school.nz

[Matt Strickland]

Hi Alistair,

Yes that's true but I am thinking of a more bigger picture, ie when 10 local schools all of a sudden see rapid absentee at the same time, whereas 10 slightly neighboring schools is not the same.

Each individual school wouldn't see this picture.

Not sure how schools handle swimming sports, for us its off-site so attendance isn't entered until the following day/week. This might trigger a local alarm, but generally not all local schools have it on the same day, at least not here as most schools hire larger council pools.

Matt

[Alistair Baird]

I agree it's a good idea. Just thinking whether it should be a policy to notify... ??? who? Should it be the DHB, should it be the ministry of Health ? I guess once the enquiry releases it's findings, that the school absentee would come out if it. Maybe you should make a submission.. 

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Alistair Baird

IT Manager

St Peters College 

p 06 354 4198

m 021 990 259

e bai...@stpeterspn.school.nz

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