Flu season is officially under way and some Kentucky schools are being hit by the bug.

Two Lexington school districts have canceled classes for the time being, but how are area schools coping?

"We're missing about thirty one kids today, so we're right at ninety percent. Normally, we'd be at about ninety sixty six percent or so," explains principal of Dishman-McGinnis Elementary Michael Wix.

Indeed, it's a low attendance day at Dishman-McGinnis.

In addition to the usual lessons being taught, the school's supporting a message, that preventing the flu is easy.

"When kids go through the lunch line, there's a hand sanitizer right there and they can use it before they get their lunch," says Wix.

But even while taking precautions, sickness sometimes happens, though it takes a trend of sicknesses all over a district before a school will be cancelled.

"It's never just a school decision. It's a district decision," Wix adds. "Numbers have to be a certain level across the district before that's even considered."

"Sometimes, we have one or two schools that have low attendance, but district wide, we're not really that low," says Jon Lawson of Bowling Green Independent schools.

Bowling Green City and Warren County schools are not considering the cancelation of class for now.

But the Barren River District Health Department says, parents still need to be on the alert for warning signs of the flu.

"Fever, usually high fever, sometimes chills, headache, muscle ache," lists Rebecca Tyree of the Barren River Health Department. "Sometimes you have a runny nose or a cough."

And according to some area nurses, the best way to prevent those symptoms is a trip to a health department.

"Right now, we have ample flu vaccination available and it's not too late," says Tyree. "We have them at all eight of our county health departments and it's ten dollars for the shot."

Tyree adds that it takes two weeks for the flu vaccine to take effect.