Franklin City Schools disinfect district after flu
Sick students, teachers force closing schools Wednesday and today.
It was the first time in 18 years of working as a schools superintendent that Michael Sander had to cancel classes due to the flu.
Sander, who has been Franklin’s superintendent for the past six years, said the number of teachers and staff calling off work Tuesday and the number of people either absent or sent home on Monday and Tuesday forced him to call off classes for Wednesday and today. Classes were previously not scheduled for Friday.
On Tuesday night, Sander already had 14 teachers and seven bus drivers call off sick for Wednesday.
He said Tuesday’s attendance at Pennyroyal Elementary was about 81%, and 15 students were sent home sick. At the Hampton Bennett Early Childhood Center, which also houses the district’s central administrative offices, attendance was at 80%.
“This does not count early dismissals for illness of which we had a significant number yesterday and we weren’t having that last week,” he said.
Sander said one teacher in the district had 10 students show up for class, only to send five of them home sick. He said the district’s attendance rate is normally about 95%, and that attendance was at 90.9% last week.
The district has 2,884 students, 199 certified staff and 129 classified staff, which includes 22 bus drivers. In addition, the district operates 20 buses and two vans to transport students each day. Sander said he was pulling people with Commercial Driver Licenses off their regular jobs to help drive the buses.
“We’re going to hit it hard to disinfect and kill the germs in the buildings and buses,” he said. “Custodians will be using sanitizers to clean all of the touch points that students might touch such as door knobs, desks, etc. It takes about
four days to do a thorough cleaning.”
Among districts closed recently for high levels of illnesses were Centerville City Schools and Wilmington City Schools.
The new flu numbers released Friday show 3,642 Ohioans were hospitalized as of Jan. 26, up from the prior weekly report’s count of 3,034 hospitalizations.
“In regards to the school closure, the decision to close is up to the individual school based on many considerations, which is unique to each school,” said Shelly Norton, Warren County Combined Health District spokeswoman.
She said the health district still has flu vaccine available and residents can call for an appointment at 513-695-1229.
Jackie Phillips, Middletown health commissioner, said she received a few calls from preschools, day care centers and some K-12 schools looking for a threshold to determine school cancellations.
Kay Farrar, Hamilton city health commissioner, said her office has seen a rough year in general, and that the city schools have seen an 11% absentee rate due to the flu.