School principals soon will receive direction on the procedures that all employees must follow to prevent possible blood-borne pathogen exposure to students and adults.

In the age of anthrax, bird flu, swine flu, seasonal flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), protecting against an outbreak is no joke.

Running a day-to-day community of children in class or at play means the district's principals, teachers, janitors, bus drivers and other staff handle blood, vomit and other bodily fluids when children get sick or injured.

Schools have procedure manuals that outline how to handle such situations, including the use of medical masks, gloves, and specialized bags for storing towels and bandages. But Gerald Adams Elementary School Principal Frannie Herrin on Tuesday told the School Board her school has found itself out of the gloves, bio-waste disposal bags and other equipment required for safe cleanup, leaving her wondering whether protocols had changed.

They have not, but staff training may need some sprucing up, Superintendent Joe Burke said.

"We'll ensure that schools have the proper medical gloves and other supplies," Burke said Wednesday. "Facilities Director Fred Sims will check on the supplies and what we need to ensure proper preparedness and we'll draft a technical memo on what they should expect in terms of the procedural manual that they're being taught."

The federal Office of Safety Hazards Administration requires school districts to teach staff medical-waste handling and other containment techniques, Sims told The Citizen Tuesday. "We'll see to what extent the training is being followed and see if more training is needed."

Herrin and other principals didn't complain about the staff's abilities or knowledge -- she just wanted to make sure all employees know what's expected of them.

"Every day in schools there are issues of cuts, bloody noses, etc.," Herrin said. "These are not new or of any concern. We all have set procedures to follow."

Teachers usually find themselves comforting a sick or injured child to the nurse's office, but it's the janitors who clean up the mess, which puts both employees at equal risk of exposure, Poinciana Elementary School Principal Amber Bosco said.

"When cleanup happens, custodians have been trained with chemicals; the teachers follow protocol such as 'gloving up and separating the other children from a student who may be sick,' " Bosco said. "If blood should happen to spill, we follow the protocols."

A review of the district's training procedures and employees' understanding of those rules will be ongoing, Burke said, and schools continue to build in hand-washing breaks between classes so students can wash their hands at least three times a day. Those hand-washing and surface-cleaning procedures have been in place since last year when dangerous staph was spreading in Florida Keys schools.

jguerra@keysnews.com