The Avilla School reopened on Thursday after closing down for two days because of illness and a high absentee rate.
In a written statement, Superintendent Scott Blake said the district cancelled classes on Tuesday and Wednesday because of a high rate of absentees on Monday.
School was back in session on Thursday.
Blake said on Monday a little more than 30 percent of students were feeling ill on Monday and some students who came to class started feeling ill by the end of the day.
“We had several (students) feeling ill toward the end of the day so I figured it would drop even more then next day,” Blake said. “On that, we’re just looking at the number of students and trying to make sure you’re not allowing anything to spread throughout the school. That’s the point I chose.”
Blake said the school faculty and staff was holding up well despite the illness.
He said he couldn’t say what the specific illness was that was keeping students home.
“A lot of it was just the parents calling and saying their child was sick so I’m not sure what was wrong,” he said.
Other schools in Kansas and across the country have closed because of students suffering from flu-like symptoms.
The H1N1 flu virus, also known as the swine flu, is sweeping across the country, making this flu season more severe than past flu seasons.
So far, experts say in most cases, the H1N1 flu is no more severe than the normal seasonal flu, but the new virus is causing more illness among younger people.
Blake said about 22 percent of Avilla students were absent on Thursday.
I think it helped,” Blake said. “We have a larger attendance rate here today, but we started out Monday with a larger attendance rate as well so we’ll have to see how the day goes.”
“No, this is the first time I’ve had to release like that,” Blake said. “It was just one of those days where as the day goes on and you see students feeling ill you realize the next day could be worse. We wanted to make sure it doesn’t spread anymore and I think it did work.”
Blake said the missed days will have to be made up at one of the breaks or at the end of the year.
