SPOKANE, WA - Many Idaho school districts worry their swine flu-related absentee rates this fall will mean cuts in their funding. Idaho allocates money based on average daily attendance. Many districts are asking the state to take the flu into account when it writes the next batch of school funding checks. Inland Northwest Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports.

Idaho state law allows school districts to appeal to the state when emergency events lead to high absentee rates. For example, swine flu. The districts can ask the state not to dock their funding because a lot of kids stay away from school.

Melissa McGrath from the Idaho Department of Education says her office usually gets one or two of these requests a year. But she says her agency is bracing for a pile of swine flu-related waivers in the next few weeks.

McGrath: “We understand that this is a strange year and H1N1 has hit. We’ve encouraged students to go home and staff to go home if they’re feeling ill. So we’re doing all that we can at the state level to ensure they still get their funding.”

About two dozen Idaho school districts declared fiscal emergencies this year to help them balance their budgets.

In Oregon, state school spokeswoman Susanne Smith says districts can lose funding for students who miss more than two consecutive weeks of school. But she doubts that’ll happen.

Copyright 2009 Spokane Public Radio

Listen