BIDDEFORD — The rate of visits to the nurse’s office at Biddeford High School with air quality related symptoms did not rise significantly between the previous school year and the current one, according to Principal Britton Wolfe. As requested, Wolfe reported these results to the School Committee on Tuesday.

The report was requested by the School Committee because some members of the community have said they are concerned about the air quality at Biddeford High School. They believe it is causing some students to be sick, including two students who had difficulty breathing and were taken by ambulance to Southern Maine Medical Center during the current school year.

BHS nurse Peggy Blood documented more than 600 total visits to her office between the beginning of the school year in September through early January, said Wolfe.

During the entire 2009-2010 school year, only about 350 visits were documented.

Despite the spike in documented nurse visits between the two years, said Wolfe, the rate of visits that could potentially be related to poor air quality at the high school remained about the same.

In the prior year, he said, approximately 11.5 percent of those visiting the nurse complained of headaches, congestion and/or rashes; symptoms that could potentially be related to poor air quality.

This school year, 14 percent of all visits could possibly be linked to air quality issues, according to school officials.

This year’s number was even closer to last year’s rate prior to early December. At that time, said Wolfe, the rate was only 12 percent, but there were 186 additional nurse visits between Dec. 6 and Jan. 7.

Blood cautioned about the limits of her report.

She said she didn’t include in her report some of the visits reporting symptoms that could be related to air quality when a bacterial or viral illness was going around the school.

Deciding which student complaints to potentially link to air quality versus something else is a subjective process, said Blood, requiring her “nurse’s instinct.”

“Some kids were definitely bacterial,” she said, “and others I knew it was related to environment.”

“I can’t account for the kids who don’t come to the office when they don’t have headaches,” Blood added.

She also noted that she didn’t document every time a student questioned her about a problem.

For instance, said Blood, if a student stood in the hallway and asked her about a hangnail, she didn’t record that in her logs.

School Committee member Anthony Michaud questioned if there was a school policy regarding how nurse visits were to be logged.

Visiting the school nurse “is not like going to your doctor’s office,” said Wolfe. It’s not possible to have the same documentation practice, he said, because of the constant traffic, the necessity of  multitasking and lack of assistance.

She couldn’t account for the large spike in the number of nurse visits this school year over the previous year. She said the previous nurse might have had a different documenting practice.

Blood said she wasn’t prepared to make any conclusions from the results.

“Historically,” she said, “we don’t have something valid and reliable to compare.”

“No one is passing judgment on the practice this or last year,” noted Wolfe.

This has become a contentious issue, with some parents saying they don’t trust school administrators, which Blood addressed on Tuesday.

“I would never be deceptive,” she said. “Ethics are very important to me.”

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.