WABASSO — With more than 20 percent of its student population affected by a flu outbreak, Wabasso Public School made the decision to close its doors for the remainder of the week.

On Wednesday evening, Superintendent Wade McKittrick notified parents of Independent School District 640 that the students and staff had been hit pretty hard by sickness.

“We’ve had several confirmed cases of Influenza A,” McKittrick said. “On Tuesday, we had 53 students and nine staff members that were out ill. There were a lot of kids gone right away in the morning and then they were dropping pretty fast during the day. They were coming into the nurse’s office and we had parents calling to say they were taking their kids in to the doctor. They’ve really helped during the process, so we knew what was going on.”

McKittrick said Wabasso started out with 69 students and 10 staff members absent on Wednesday morning. Five more students went home by noon, putting that number at 74 — about 20 percent of the student population.

“Along with the Influenza A, we’ve had some kind of stomach bug coming through, so the two things are converging at the same time,” McKittrick said.

McKittrick said there were also many more students walking the halls who appeared sick.

“They maybe shouldn’t be here, but are,” he said. “And we had to think about families. If one child has Influenza, is it gong to spread? We started weighing all those things out. You’d go through the school and some classes would have about one-third of the kids gone, so you have to question how valuable is this for everybody?”

In addition to closing the school Thursday and today, practices and activities were cancelled. McKittrick said he met with the leadership team and maintenance department and got the school board involved as well in the decision-making process.

“We really thought that was the right thing to do because 80 percent of the high school kids are involved in extra-curricular activities,” McKittrick said. “Those kids would be going to practices and games, riding together on buses, so we made the decision to call off those, too. To combat the large amount of illness and to attempt to prevent further spreading, we thought the best thing for kids is to give them four days to rest for them to hopefully get healthy.”

Along with parents and staff members, McKittrick said coaches seemed to fully support the administrative decisions.

“Our coaches had already called off practices on Wednesday, prior to us making that decision because so many kids were sick,” he said. “They just wanted kids to go home and get healthy. Other things are pretty insignificant right now. We’re just hoping four days is enough to knock it out.”

From information he’s gathered so far, McKittrick said symptoms of Influenza A have included a variety of symptoms.

“It can include a high fever, body aches and severe headaches,” he said. “When you see a kid walking down the hallway and their eyes are half squinted shut and they look like they’re in pain, you know something isn’t right. And the last thing they want to do is reading, writing or arithmetic when they’re sick.”

The entire maintenance department and custodial crew have been going through the building from top to bottom.

“They’re sanitizing all the touch points and giving the building a good, deep clean, so we can make sure to wipe out all the germs,” McKittrick said.

Classes and practices are expected to resume on Monday at Wabasso Public School. The two school dates are expected to be made up at a later date.

“Thursday’s school day will be made up at the end of the school year and Friday will be made up on March 27,” McKittrick said. “I apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause, however, we believe this action is prudent for the well-being of our students.”

Wabasso Public School includes the communities of Lucan, Seaforth, Vesta, Wanda and Wabasso.

St. Anne’s School in Wabasso, a K-6 facility, has not been affected by widespread illness as of yet and will not follow the public school schedule. In anticipation of blustery road conditions, St. Anne’s was closed Thursday.

“We worked together, so they were in the loop with what we were doing,” McKittrick said. “They only had one kid out sick, so they were fortunate.”

Classes at St. Anne’s are slated to be in session today. Parents are responsible for transportation as busing is not provided because of the public school’s closure.

“We’re grateful that our community is so supportive anyway, so we were confident that they would be behind us,” McKittrick said. “We’ve had several phone calls just offering encouragement, saying they thought it was the right thing to do. The bottom line is that we have to look out for what’s best for kids.”