Helpful Tips for Staying Healthy During the Flu Season

Helpful Tips for Staying Healthy During the Flu Season:

As we work our way through the flu season, we wanted to provide you with some useful tips to help your students, families, and school teams finish the school year healthy and strong.  To guard against flu, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends the following:

• The first and most important step is to get a flu vaccination each year.
• If you get sick with flu, take prescription antiviral drugs if your doctor prescribes them. Early treatment is especially important for the elderly, the very young, people with certain chronic health conditions, and pregnant women.
• Everyday, take preventive actions that may slow the spread of germs that cause respiratory (nose, throat, and lungs) illnesses, like flu, such as avoiding contact with sick people, touching your eyes, nose, and mouths, covering your mouth when coughing and sneezing, and washing your hands with soap and water.

Additionally, below are resources for you to share with your students, families, and staff:

• CDC Fight-the-Flu Poster
• CDC Flu Guide for Parents 2018
• CDC Everyday Preventative Actions
• CDC Sick with the Flu Information

Please familiarize yourself with this information and review it with your team.  As always, support is available if you encounter serious health situations at your school.  If you have questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact health services at (901) 416-6700.

February Tidbits

February

1. Connect with other families 
   National PTA's Take Your Family to School Week is February 12 to 18. Help out at events such as family reading night, parenting workshops, or educational family activities. National PTA offers grants to help fund especially deserving school programs. Help your school apply for next year at pta.org/familytoschool.
2. Celebrate African American History Month 
   Your school, local museums, and libraries will have special events. You and your children can also go to africanamerican historymonth.gov for online exhibits and activities.
3. Honor Presidents' Day 
   Search online for activities you can do with your kids, such as matching presidential portraits with their names or doing word searches about them. Older students will enjoy learning about the four presidents carved into Mount Rushmore at nps.gov/moru.
4. Schedule a midyear checkin with the teacher 
   Discuss your children's progress and how homework is going. And always reach out to teachers when important changes are happening in your family's life, such as the death of a relative, a move to a new home, or anything that might affect your children's behavior or performance at school—so the school staff can offer support as well.
   
   dept of education countdown to success