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Illnesses keep Eastern Hancock Schools closed 2nd day for cleaning

Illnesses close Eastern Hancock Schools facilties

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Ind. (WISH) — An entire school district is shut down because of illness among students and teachers.

That’s upward of 500 students between Eastern Hancock’s middle and high schools stuck at home doing e-learning days.

When can parents expect to have kids back in physical class? The short answer here is at least not for a couple more days. Superintendent Dave Pfaff said he couldn’t meet with News 8 Wednesday because he has the flu.

He said crews were inside the elementary, middle and high schools focused cleaning efforts so everything could get back to normal ASAP.

Pfaff didn’t say how many students have been sick the last couple of days, but the district on Tuesday put out a Facebook post saying students and staff were out for bronchitis, strep, influenza A and influenza B. Even though they spent Wednesday cleaning the schools, they will continue Thursday with another day with no classes and an e-learning day. The superintendent said it’s just to get some extra cleaning in and keep students away from each other. Better to be safe than sorry.

This is a problem for more than just Eastern Hancock Schools. The Indiana State Department of Health said Friday that there have been five schoolwide flu outbreaks this season. That was five days ago, and does not include Eastern Hancock. For a comparison around the area, we reached out to a couple other school districts to check their attendance. Brownsburg was fairly healthy with 95.7% attendance — that’s about 1 percent better than this time last year.