EUREKA SPRINGS — Eureka Springs public schools will be closed today and Friday because of illness.
Based on numbers from school principals, 121 students - or 19 percent of the district’s 655 students - were absent on Wednesday. The total enrollment figure includes about 40 preschool students.
Superintendent Curtis Turner said he met with principals and they decided to shut down the school system in an attempt to keep diseases from spreading.
“At some point, you just have to make that call,” he said.
Turner said he has shut down an entire school district because of absenteeism only one other time during his 30-year career as a superintendent. Turner was a superintendent at Delight, Glenwood, Clinton and Murfreesboro before coming to Eureka Springs a year ago.
Turner said students have a variety of illnesses, including influenza, stomach viruses and sinus infections. Closing the schools for only one day wouldn’t help because most of the illnesses last longer than a day, he said. Counting the weekend, students in Eureka Springs will be out of school for four days before they return on Monday.
“Social distancing is a proven strategy to reduce the transmission of some diseases,” said Dr. Dirk Haselow , state epidemiologist and medical director for Communicable Disease & Immunization. “School closure works on that principle. We at the Arkansas Department of Health are still learning the details of this situation so I cannot definitively say what is going on or what to expect.”
Clare Lesieur, principal at Eureka Springs Elementary School, said 70 of her 270 students were absent on Wednesday, but that was an improvement from 91 absent on Friday. More students at the middle school were getting sick this week, she said.
Cindy Holt, principal at the middle school, said 37 of her 190 students were absent Wednesday. Last week, the number of absentees at the middle school was in the upper 20s, she said.
Kathy Lavender, the high school principal, said she only had 14 of her 195 students absent Wednesday, but the number was climbing daily.
“The problem is it’s moving over to the high school,” she said. “It started in the elementary school. It’s a number of illnesses, not just the flu.”
Leah Weaver, the elementary school’s nurse, said most of the students had flu-like symptoms.
“We have confirmed flu and strep [throat],” said Lesieur. “There is a stomach virus going around.”
There has been no confirmation of norovirus at the elementary school, she said.
Norovirus, which is stomach virus, sickened about one third of the 900 students at Springdale’s Hellstern Middle School last Thursday, prompting its closure on Friday. Rick Schaeffer , a spokesman for the Springdale School District, said things had improved this week. Only 76 Hellstern students were absent on Wednesday. But norovirus has a shorter duration than the flu. Patients are very sick for one or two days, then they’re over it, said Schaeffer.
Lesieur said people who have the flu are contagious for five days.
“Everybody is seeing a lot of flu,” said Kim Meyer, a nurse at Eureka Springs Hospital. “And people have had a stomach bug. It’s probably a combination of both.”
Turner said absenteeism was climbing at Eureka Springs schools last week. Administrators took advantage of the three-day weekend for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday to thoroughly clean and sanitize the school buildings.
Lesieur said table tops and desks were swabbed with antibiotic wipes and foggers were set off to kill germs. On Monday, windows were opened to air out the schools.
Turner said it seemed tohelp initially, but by Wednesday absenteeism was very high.
“We thought the three-day weekend would give us the gift of a little time there, but it just continued,” said Lesieur. “It seems to be more student-tostudent or student-to-teacher that’s spreading it more than anything.”
Dr. Haselow said a thorough cleaning and disinfecting will help the fight against some illnesses.
“Environmental cleaning is key to prevent some pathogens that survive in the environment, like norovirus,” he said. “And it may help a little bit with others, like some respiratory viruses like influenza. But bottom line, it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
“With diseases that are primarily person-to-person spread, environmental decontamination would not be expected to help much. In such situations cough etiquette, personal hygiene, staying home when ill, and social distancing are key.”
Lesieur said 15 employees of the elementary school were sick Wednesday. That’s about half her staff.
“It’s kind of getting tough to run school and minimize the continuing spread,” she said. “We really want to keep healthy people healthy. ... We just haven’t been able to get a handle on the spread of it.”
Ann Purvis, deputy director for administration at the Arkansas Department of Health, said the department doesn’t advise schools to close because of illness, but it did in Hellstern’s case because it was so severe.
Gayle Morris, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Education, said she doesn’t know when the last time an entire school district shut down because of illness.
“Schools aren’t required to report to us when they do that,” she said.
Albert Larson, a member of the Eureka Springs School Board, said many doctors in the tourist town were sick during the holidays, making it more difficult for people to get treatment.
Larson said he’s been sick since before Christmas. It’s not the flu, but he’s not sure what it is.
“I can’t say that I’m fully recovered yet,” he said. “Most of the symptoms are gone, but what I had led to fatigue. It was difficult to get through the day without wearing out.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/24/2013