April 2006

Dear Colleague:

Recently, I traveled with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt 
  to call on education officials to make pandemic influenza preparedness a priority. 
  Scientists predict that the world is due for an influenza pandemic. We are asking 
  States, school districts, colleges, and universities to ensure that your emergency 
  crisis plans include specific measures to prepare for and deal with an influenza 
  pandemic.

Pandemic influenza could have a profound effect on our nation's educational 
  institutions. Students would be expected to have high rates of infection. As 
  centers of community life, and as institutions that teach the nation’s 
  students, our schools, colleges, and universities must be integrally involved 
  in State and local efforts to plan and prepare for a potential pandemic. In 
  preparation for a pandemic, our educational institutions are uniquely equipped 
  to disseminate preventative health information to educators, parents, students, 
  and the local community. They also must be ready to deal with possible interruptions 
  and closings, staff and student absences, and the need to maintain and restore 
  the student-learning environment. Institutions of higher education would face 
  additional challenges, such as addressing the safety and health implications 
  of housing students in dormitories during a pandemic. Furthermore, State or 
  local officials may request that educational institutions serve as emergency 
  quarantine facilities or vaccination sites during a pandemic. Educational institutions 
  must also consider potential challenges related to environmental remediation 
  if their facilities are used in this manner.

Under the leadership of President George W. Bush, the White House and each 
  Federal agency are engaged in planning for pandemic influenza. At the U.S. Department 
  of Education, we are developing a pandemic plan to ensure continued services 
  and assistance to State educational agencies, local educational agencies, institutions 
  of higher education, and public and private school communities. I urge you to 
  integrate pandemic influenza preparedness into your ongoing crisis management 
  planning efforts.

State and local preparedness is critical. To that end, the Department of Health 
  and Human Services, through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 
  has prepared planning checklists to help the education community prepare for 
  a possible pandemic. The enclosed "Colleges and Universities Pandemic Influenza 
  Planning Checklist" may serve as a helpful tool to begin those vital conversations, 
  if they have not happened already. This checklist, as well as checklists for K-12 
  education, child care facilities, and other current and up-to-date information 
  on pandemic influenza, can be found at www.pandemicflu.gov.

The U.S. Department of Education is committed to assisting you in planning 
  for the possibility of pandemic influenza in order to ensure that we protect 
  and educate our students. We look forward to working with you on this important 
  matter.

| | Sincerely,        
| | ------------------
| | /s/               
| | Margaret Spellings

Enclosure*

* Note: The enclosure sent with this document included the "Colleges 
  and Universities Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist" as of March 20, 2006 
  (Version 2.2). We are providing here a direct link to the checklist on the Web 
  site of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in order to provide 
  you the most up-to-date information on this topic. Because HHS is continually 
  updating information regarding pandemic influenza planning, the document viewed 
  at this link may or may not exactly match what was distributed in April 2006.

|Last Modified: 03/21/2012
|-------------------------