OSBURN, Idaho — A North Idaho elementary school remains closed due to close to half of the student body being sick.
106 out of the 260 students enrolled at Silver Hills Elementary were home sick by the end of school Monday. Additionally, nine staff members were sick as well. Silver Hills’ principal said cases of influenza B and strep throat were to blame.
The widespread illnesses prompted principal Todd Howard to cancel classes on Tuesday and Wednesday and direct school staff to disinfect various areas of the school.
"[I was] shocked in the overall number,” remarked Howard of the high amount of sick students. The Friday before, 40 students were out sick. Howard admitted that he thought more students would recover over the weekend and be healthy on Monday. “Of course it hasn't dropped down,” he said.
Howard noted that the amount of sick students was unseasonably high for November.
"That's almost double the highest I've ever had on a single day in 12 years,” he said of the 106 sick students.
Howard added that he consulted with the Panhandle Health District before deciding to close school for two days. Howard said the two days represented incubation periods for the illnesses and would allow infected students who hadn’t developed symptoms yet to determine if they were fit to return to school on Thursday.
"Hopefully Thursday's numbers look a little bit better and we'll go from there,” Howard said.
School custodians focused on bleaching and disinfecting certain areas of Silver Hills that included tabletops, light switches, and lockers. One school staff member remarked to KREM that the school “smelled of bleach.”
While the illness-related closure wasn’t the first for Silver Hills, the move was still an uncommon one. In the spring of 2018, Silver Hills canceled classes on a Friday due to a high number of ill staff members and a lack of substitute teachers. Howard said that the current closure was unique given the amount of sick students.
For comparison, the Coeur d’Alene School District hasn’t issued any illness-related school closures in recent memory, according to district spokesman Scott Maben.
Howard said it’s unlikely that the canceled days will have to be made up later in the year, but that would largely depend on the winter season and any potential snow days.