NEISD stages "Asthma Blow Out"

accounts for more missed school days than any other health problem. Now, the Northeast Independent School District is taking a proactive approach to helping students manage the disease.

MacArthur High School is a bustling place, with 2500 students. More than 200 of them suffer from asthma, teenagers like 14-year-old Catherine Sharp, who was diagnosed with the disease three years ago.

"It kind of feels like someone's holding onto your lungs very tightly and you just can't get the air out," Sharp explained. "So it can be scary at times. But that's why you have to take your inhaler."

NEISD is taking steps to keep asthma problems from disrupting school time and learning. For instance, there's a district-wide push to remove all carpeting in all schools, replacing it with tile and cutting down on asthma triggers.

Also, each campus is equipped with a nebulizer, a special machine that can deliver rescue medication to a child who is having trouble breathing. That measure has cut down on trips to the E.R. dramatically over the past three years.

Asthma educator Diane Rhodes teaches parents, teachers and students about environmental triggers to avoid. She also counsels students on using their medications to their advantage.

"They're going to have asthma for the rest of their life," Rhodes said. "They need to know how to control it and live with it so that it doesn't limit their life."

Freshman Claudia Trevino has been coping with asthma for seven years. She's an athlete who has made certain she controls the disease and it doesn't control her.

"Sometimes it will flare up and sometimes they'll have to sit me out," she explained. "But that's like a wake-up call, like I need to take my control medicine."

More than 6,000 NEISD students are diagnosed with asthma.