Local School Attendance Hurt by Several Illnesses

Numerous area kids have been out of school over the last couple of weeks, but they haven't enjoyed it much.



McCracken County's Director of Pupil Personnel Brian Bowland said much of their district has been, "hit hard," with a variety of  illnesses taking a toll on attendance.



He said the trend started at Hendron-Lone Oak late last month, when 115 of 420 students were absent one day. Bowland said they only had  about 20 confirmed cases of flu, but strep throat and a stomach bug were also culprits.



Other schools have had similar issues in the district lately. One 4th-grade teacher at Heath Elementary told a parent that ten students were  absent from her class Thursday, and Bowland said Concord Elementary, Lone Oak Elementary and Lone Oak Middle have had low attendance.  He said Concord's attendance is usually around 97.5 percent, but this week has seen almost 70 students missing, for attendance below 90  percent.



Massac County School Superintendent Dennis Smith says most of his district has normal attendance, except for one building.



"Yeah, it's kind of curious, really, it just seems to be the Junior High that is most affected right now, we have about a third of the students out there.  So somebody must have gone in that building pretty hot with something, because it's traveling around that group of students pretty quickly right  now," Smith said.



Smith said they're monitoring the situation closely, and even brought in an extra custodian last night to do some extra cleaning of doorknobs and easily contaminated surfaces, trying to avoid more widespread illness or cancellation of classes.



Smith said if illness spreads in his district, timing could work in their favor with Christmas break coming. He said it would have to get much worse, but if needed, they could dismiss for the holiday earlier and let the germs die while school is out.



Anecdotally, attendance at other western Kentucky schools has also been affected, but some school districts who were contacted Thursday did not return calls.