Hancock Schools Cleaning Up from Flu

Staff in one closed district that we didn’t mention just now say it wasn’t any failure to prepare that’s behind it.

It’s just a sign of how powerfully and suddenly this flu virus hit.

The bug hasn’t left the Keweenaw alone.

Hancock schools have been closed since the end of the day Tuesday.

Custodial staff have been busy cleaning everything back up.

And today they tackled the lockers.

Superintendent Monica Healy says they had plenty of hand sanitizer available, and students and staff were all using it, but the enormity of the early-season flu just overwhelmed them.

By Tuesday, they had 26% of their elementary students ill.

The middle school seemed relatively free of flu.

But the high school had 23% absent, and that was rising quickly.

It was spiking so fast that Healy felt they didn’t have much choice but to dismiss all the students for the week.

Healy says they picked Monday as a re-opening date just to make sure anyone who’s sick can have those 2 extra days to go on the mend.