Concern about a possible bird flu pandemic has grown in the medical community with the spread of the avian flu virus around the globe. Health officials say there is no immediate threat but add that an influenza pandemic occurs every 30 to 40 years, and prudence demands planning now. That planning will increasingly involve local school officials, who need to prepare for the possibility of a major disruption in school operations. In a worst-case scenario, a pandemic could force school closures, the conversion of school gyms and cafeterias into makeshift hospitals, and create a need to find alternative ways to educate homebound children for a period of weeks or even months. A starting point for such efforts is a pandemic planning checklist for schools, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which is now online at www.pandemicflu.gov. This article discusses the school's role in communicating to parents and students who become alarmed as news of a pandemic spreads by being informational in educating them about what this could mean and what they should be doing if something of that magnitude were to occur.