UNDATED (WKZO AM/FM) — Kalamazoo Schools have decided to join Comstock and just cancel classes for the rest of the week because of the number of children who had come down with viral infections, probably the flu.
Closing Friday due to illness; Comstock, Parchment, Portage schools are closed.
Also Battle Creek Public Schools, Pennfield, Harper Creek and Lakeview systems are closing as well as Galesburg-Augusta, Colon, Bangor and Lawrence schools.
Kalamazoo Superintendent Michael Rice says working with county health officials, they decided to try a longer break. He says after closing seven elementary schools in the last two days, they just weren’t seeing much benefit in the one-day breaks, and they hope the longer one will give students and staff a chance to get better.
Comstock Superintendent Todd Mora says the issue wasn’t only students coming to school sick, they were rapidly running out of staff, and he says it’s difficult these days to find substitutes on a normal day.
The districts will be sanitizing surfaces in the interim and reopen on Monday, cross their fingers and hope that the break has given the outbreak a chance to run its course.
Dr. Rice says a lot of this is up to parents. He says it’s important that if they have a sick child, that they isolate them while they are home and practice good hygiene to limit the spread of the virus. That means no visitors.
When they do resume classes, it will be important that any student that had been sick be symptom free for 24-hours before they come back to school.
