School nurses at Hayden School District were back in the classroom this week reminding and teaching kindergarten students about proper hand-washing and healthy eating and sleep habits as flu season continues.

Anna Davis, a nationally certified school nurse who has worked in the Hayden schools since 2008, said the number of students absent due to the flu is not higher this year compared to last year, but she is sending more kids home who are already sick.

“We are sending three or four kids home a day, more than usual,” Davis said, which she noted is significant in a district of 428 students from preschool through high school.

“Parents are sending them to school already sick,” Davis said of the students being sent home. “We can’t control whether we get sick or not, but we can control how to take care of ourselves when we are sick and not getting other people sick and controlling spread.”

Routt County school nurses point parents to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment education “How Sick Is Too Sick” webpage. The guidelines explain students and staff must be fever-free for 24 hours, with symptoms improving without the use of medications, to be able to safely return to school. The temperature that qualifies as a fever is 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.

Davis noted some staff are wearing medical masks as a precaution during this flu season, so she answered questions from young students about masks.

“We were teaching about the spread of germs, proper hand-washing, healthy eating and sleep habits, and why people would wear masks,” Davis said. “Kindergarten students have a lot of questions about the masks and do notice when staff wear them for precautionary reasons.”

Brittany Ahlgrim, nurse for the South Routt School District, said student absences due to flu are not higher than last year in the district, but she is staying busy educating parents about the state guidelines for when students are well enough to return to school.

“I’m always speaking to parents and guardians, and I just let them know I am following Colorado health guidelines,” said Ahlgrim, a nurse for 15 years.

Ahlgrim teaches the district’s preschool students at the beginning of the school year, as well as after the Christmas break, about how to properly wash their hands for 20 seconds using soap and friction. She teaches the youngsters “the three things we don’t touch is eyes, nose and mouth” when trying to stay healthy from communicable diseases.

When teaching families about the “How Sick Is Too Sick” state guidelines, Ahlgrim reminds parents that medications to reduce fever or to stop vomiting or diarrhea cannot be utilized within the most recent 24 hours before sending children back to school.

According to the CDPHE’s Viral Respiratory Diseases Data, the online database showed a peak of 846 hospital admissions reported due to influenza across the state for the week ending Dec. 27. For the week ending Jan. 10, that dropped to 406 hospital admissions across Colorado. Two pediatric patients have died in Colorado due to the flu since Oct. 1.

The CDPHE reported 18 of the 21 monitored wastewater utilities in Colorado detected influenza.

Lauren Bryan, infection prevention program manager at UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center, said during the last two weeks of 2025, the YVMC lab had 147 positive flu tests. In the past two weeks in January, that number was 65 positive flu tests, about a 56% decrease. Bryan said the “decrease is not due to people taking precautions,” adding that “people are sending sick children to school.”

“Our pattern is following the state, so we cannot attribute the pattern to local population influxes, outside of how many nonlocals happen to be in town getting tested,” Bryan said. “Seasonal fluctuations are common … My Magic 8 Ball does not know if this decrease will continue or if we will have a biphasic or triphasic year.”

According to a Jan. 14 media release from the University of Colorado Anschutz medical center, the amount of hospitalizations in Colorado from flu during the week ending Dec. 27 were “the most since the state started tracking flu cases two decades ago.”

Davis said Hayden teachers are required to sign off on an annual health training supplied by the nurses to learn illness symptoms to watch out for and how to help keep themselves and students as healthy as possible. Parents of new preschool and kindergarten students attend a “Roundup” event that includes education on staying healthy.

“Stay home if you are sick,” Davis advised, “and take precautions to stay healthy.”