Palatine schools start vaccinating against H1N1

When you have four daughters 13 and under, you pay attention when H1N1 vaccines are offered at their school.

Julie Hake was at St. Thomas of Villanova School in Palatine Thursday to see her younger daughters through the process. The two older ones were at home - one with a fever and the other not feeling well.

"It seems like the prudent thing to do to try to protect those still standing and also try to prevent the spread of this if at all possible," she said.

"My older two are freaked out about the disease in general," Hake added. "I'm not trying to instill this panic, they are hearing it from other sources."

Public and private schools in two Palatine ZIP codes were the first in Cook County to have vaccination clinics sponsored by the Cook County Department of Public Health Thursday. In all, 17 schools in Palatine will offer vaccines by the end of Friday.

Twelve of those schools are in Palatine Township Elementary District 15, which did not allow reporters and cameras inside Thursday.

At the six District 15 schools that had vaccinations Thursday, the clinics finished before dismissal, even though the vaccine arrived more than an hour late, said Jim Garwood, assistant superintendent for administrative services.

He was prepared to delay dismissals if necessary to finish the vaccinations.

About 65 percent of the parents opted for the vaccine, with some schools as high as 74 percent.

Only children attending the Palatine schools were authorized to get the vaccine, along with staff members considered high risk. Children at the six District 15 schools in Rolling Meadows and two in Hoffman Estates schools will have to wait a few weeks.

However, Garwood decided over the weekend that 300 Hoffman Estates and Rolling Meadows students with chronic health conditions should be offered the vaccine now, and those children were invited to come to the Palatine schools Thursday and Friday.

He said the response was highest in Hoffman Estates, where a 5-year-old at Thomas Jefferson School died last week from complications involving H1N1 and a pre-existing condition.

"Sometimes you just have to do what you think is right," Garwood said Thursday.

One of those is 8-year-old Grace Grubb of Inverness, a Thomas Jefferson student who has diabetes.

"Piece of cake," Grace declared after her shot. "I was scared it was gong to hurt. My arm felt weird."

Her mother, Colleen Grubb, said it was a tough decision to have her daughters vaccinated but "I would feel horrible if something happened and we didn't get it done."

Her younger daughter, Anna, 6, who has asthma, is in the classroom attended by the 5-year-old who died. "It's very, very sad," said Colleen Grubb. "It brings it very close to home."

Garwood said the schools in District 15 were calm, with no angry citizens showing up and demanding vaccines. He hadn't known what to expect, and as a precaution Palatine police drove past the schools regularly, and ham operators maintained communication with village hall.

There were a few hitches.

The vaccine was late in arriving. The supplies came from the South suburbs and were delayed by traffic and other issues attributable to "opening day," said Sean McDermott, spokesman for the Cook County Department of Public Health, which operates the clinics.

As well, St. Thomas had a power outage because of an underground cable problem, said Principal John LaRoche.

"We came in this morning and part of it was out," he said, adding that ComEd hooked up a generator, but for a time they had no phones.