With flu season starting in the midst of a pandemic, it may be more important than ever to keep on top of symptoms of contagious illnesses.

Elementary schools in Columbia Falls and Kalispell school districts are offering free smart thermometers to families through the Lysol + Kinsa FLUency health program.

The FLUency program was established to help families and schools quickly detect and take steps to prevent further spread of contagious illnesses common in schools such as the flu, colds, strep throat and more recently, COVID-19.

“Fever is often an early sign that illness is starting and spreading,” said Kinsa FLUency Director Nita Nehru.

The Kinsa smart thermometers are Bluetooth-enabled, which means they can be paired with smartphones to upload temperatures to Kinsa’s app, where families can also report symptoms their child is experiencing.

Participating families and school staff, such as nurses and administrators, will be able to see anonymous aggregated information including symptoms in a building by grade level. Both will also be able to see diagnoses, if shared by parents. For example, two students had a fever, one had a cough and six were diagnosed with flu.The thermometers do not collect personally identifiable information and Kinsa complies with medical privacy regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, according to the company.

Any information about what may be going around buildings is valuable to school nurses such as Dawn Cassidy, who serves Elrod, Hedges and Rankin elementary schools, which are offering the program for the second year. Edgerton, Peterson and Russell are offering it for the first time this year. Cassidy said it’s also helpful to parents in deciding whether or not to go to the doctor.

“Other parents may see someone has strep in third grade, and say, ‘OK that makes sense; my kid has a sore throat,’” Cassidy said.

“The other thing is, it keeps sick kids home,” she added, when parents know a contagious illness is prevalent at school — or for certain that their child has a fever.

CASSIDY SAID there are a variety of reasons why she wanted schools to apply for the program, from children sent to school sick, to families who didn’t own thermometers at home, which may become a larger issue if thermometer supplies become scarce.

“A lot of parents send children to school hoping they’ll feel better. Even as adults we do the same thing and go to work,” Cassidy said. “It’s just a combination of many things I would repeatedly see.

“There’s nothing worse than coming to school when a fever is progressing,” she added, and a child comes to the nurse’s office in tears while she tries to call a parent or guardian, who then has to make arrangements to pick them up. “It really is preventing a whole domino effect in my mind.”

Ruder Elementary school nurse Paula Halama also stressed the importance of sick children staying home. Ruder is participating in the program for the first time this year, while Glacier Gateway is in its second year. While the schools have stand-up infrared thermometers to check temperatures when students arrive, Halama said the optimal scenario is parents checking temperatures before leaving home, so that sick children don’t get on a school bus or come into contact with others.

Families may also find other features on the app beneficial. If a fever is detected on the smart thermometers, the app provides suggestions of the next steps parents can take and lists contact information for local medical providers and pharmacies. Parents may also record steps taken (bed rest, for example), or medicine they gave their sick child, which may be helpful during a doctor’s visit. This information is not visible to other families or schools.

Kinsa will continue to deliver free thermometers to schools, which will distribute them to families through December.

Families interested in signing up may text “Fluency” to 900900 or visit get.KinsaHealth.com/newUser to download the app and join their school’s group.

Schools interested in participating may submit an application at www.kinsahealth.co/kinsa-for-schools. There is currently a waitlist.

“We’ve gotten 17,000 applications for less than 4,000 spots,” Nehru said, and priority is given to schools with high populations of students from low-income families.

Reporter Hilary Mathson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.