ELIZABETHTOWN, Ill. (WSIL) -- An 'alarming' number of absences has forced Hardin County CUSD #1 to close until next week.
About 25%, or 124 of the school district's students, didn't arrive to class Tuesday morning, according to superintendent Andy Edmondson.
Edmondson says 29 students were absent because they had COVID. 59 students missed school because of quarantine or had close contact with someone infected.
Edmondson says 44 students who were absent but didn't call in, leading to concerns about the virus spreading and upping the caseload. Edmondson says it was a 'tough' call that will help create a safer learning environment.
"Our poor nurse was overwhelmed," Edmondson said. "Students were lined up with COVID-like symptoms."
Around 44% of new COVID-19 cases tracked by the ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Seven Health Department on Monday came from school-aged children under age 19, says outreach coordinator Nathan Ryder.
Ryder says children only made up 10% of new cases around the same time last year. He adds this may be due to community spread and that it will take a community to beat the virus. But Ryder warns mitigations need to be taken.
"For a lot of schools we're only into the second week of school," Ryder said. "This might be an unfortunate trend that we begin to see because we're seeing so many infections in kids right now."
Custodians will deep clean the entire school this week in hopes of reopening by next Monday, Edmonson says.
Custodian cleans in the background amid a mass of lunch tables separated by plastic dividers at Hardin County High School
"We're not going to get into the politics of mask or no mask, vaccination or not vaccination," Edmondson said. "Our goal is teaching our students and that's what we want to do to the best of our ability and really that's our focus."
