About 80 of the more than 500 students who reported absent from Ryle High School earlier this week were back in class on Wednesday.
Boone County Schools superintendent Randy Poe said he expects more students to return as the wave of illness, which has ranged from 24-hour bugs to flu-like symptoms, subsides. On Tuesday more than 500 students were absent from the 1,566-student body. Normally, about 90 students are absent on a daily basis, he said.
He said he has heard from several parents that their ill students suffered flu-like symptoms but he had heard of no health-department confirmed cases of H1N1 flu.
He said the illness spreading through Ryle is similar to that which kept about 200 Gray Middle School students home last week. The middle school is next door to Ryle and many siblings of students at Gray attend Ryle. At this point there are no plans to cancel any school events. Illness at Bishop Brossart High School in Alexandria earlier this month led to a decision to postpone a football game.
Even though nearly a third of the students were absent on Tuesday, classes continued at the Union high school and those absent were able to keep up via the Internet and by contacting teachers, Poe said.
“We continue with the teaching and learning process for the students who are there,” Poe said.
Poe said the school has highlighted ways to guard against the spread of illness, such as proper hygiene, how to minimize the spread of germs by coughing properly and wiping down lockers daily with disinfectant.
“But the best defense is any child who is ill should stay home,” Poe said. “Parents who are keeping their (ill) children home are actually doing what we asked them to do.”
