Fears are mounting that the wave of sickness sweeping Southland schools could get worse, with numbers of staff and student absences on the rise.

Southland Boys’ High School rector Ray Laurenson said although his school had not noticed any unusual increase in student absences due to illness, staff had been suffering.

“I’ve been bleeding staff, 14 away today . . . a lot of my staff are currently away because they are at home with their sick children. That would mean that the illnesses would come through the secondary schools probably in the next week or two,” he said.

Primary schools were dealing with sickness the most, but he expected it would inevitably reach secondary schools too, Mr Laurenson said.

“When the sick kids give it to their older siblings, it’ll come into the school.

“Sort of next week or week after, it’ll be pretty big I imagine, but that’s just what usually happens.”

Donovan Primary principal Peter Hopwood said although they had experienced worse in the past, he believed things were just starting.

“We’ve had days with 35 to 40 kids. Today we’ve probably had five go home . . . I don’t think it’s peaked yet,” he said.

Staff wise they had about three absent at a time across office, support staff, and teachers, he said.

“It hasn’t let up, we’re getting influenza A; today’s one is the vomiting bug.”

Mr Hopgood had also noticed pupils and staff had been off sick for longer compared to previous years.

“Some of these kids are getting quite sick for three or four days. I’ve had staff be off for a week.

“We can’t get a good clear of it, we’re not always able to staff it, that’s our problem at the moment.”

Waihopai School principal Andrew Smith shared a similar story, having 50 to 60 pupils off sick last week.

“It’s certainly a spike . . . I’m not sure compared to previous years but it seems a bit higher.”

He said Tuesday last week was peak with students not coming in, and adding “a lot of kids went home during the day as well”.

Otatara School principal Sharon Livingstone said they were also dealing with more staff absences rather than pupils.

“We’ve been hit harder with staff absences, we have one or two relievers in the school most days.”

There had been an increase of absences compared to the past few years, and over the last three to four weeks, “staff seem to be getting hit with the flu”, Mrs Livingstone said.

When it comes to Waverley Park School, principal Kerry Hawkins said the number of absences had been consistent with what they expected.

“Over the last four weeks we’ve still got 92% attendance. Of the remaining 8%, 6% comes under the heading of justified absence,” he said.

“It’s typical for this stage of the year, it’s the worst term for that sort of thing.”

His staff were doing well too, noting that many who called in sick did so because they had a sick child at home.

“I’ve got two or three staff away today, two of them are because of illness and of course a lot of teachers are parents as well.”

Even year to date his school was consistent with its attendance and absences.

“It was up and down between 91.8% and 92.1% . . . we’re pretty normal for this stage of the year.”

Well South chief operating officer Damon Campbell said the presence of influenza was no worse than previous years, but was hitting a spike.

“Since the Covid pandemic, parents and schools have been more vigilant about keeping children home if they’re sick and testing them, the absence from school tends to be higher than the actual number of presentations at GPs.” 

He said there had been a few cases of hand, foot, and mouth disease along with chicken pox which had further contributed to absences.

“The influenza vaccine is still available, and we encourage people to take the opportunity for vaccination to prevent the further spread of this illness.”

tayler.mutton@alliedmedia.co.nz