School districts in Seymour and Archer City will undergo a deep cleaning Friday after having to cancel classes due to the flu.
In Seymour, more than 100 students missed class Thursday and over in Archer City, 26 percent of the school population called in sick. School districts across Texoma are seeing increased flu activity and are doing what they can to alleviate the outbreak.
The halls of Seymour high school will be empty Friday after the school district canceled Friday classes. Something Seymour mother Lynette Smajstrla is thankful for.
“I think it gives the kids and the teachers time to recuperate if they’ve been feeling a little ill,” Smajstrla said. “I think it’s wonderful that they’ve taken the time to clean up the school and sanitize it and just taking preventive measures is great.”
Seymour Superintendent John Anderson said the number of flu-related absences is up from previous years.
“This has probably the biggest season that we’ve actually had in a very long time since I’ve been here. I think we’ve got a combination of flu and stomach virus going around,” Anderson said.
Seymour isn’t the only school district facing the spread of the flu virus. In City View, the Superintendent said they take weekly precautions in hopes of keeping the bug at bay.
“We’ve got a machine that was actually donated to us and this machine, it’s a sprayer and you put some disinfectant in the sprayer and you go in and you spray down all of the rooms. You spray the furniture and we’ve been doing that on the weekends. We started doing that in December,” City View Superintendent Tony Bushong said.
Young children are among the groups that are most at risk for complications from the flu virus. Medical experts said it is not too late to get your flu shot, but if symptoms are already there, there’s one thing parents can do.
“We do have Tamiflu that is safe to give children as well as adults and that will shorten the duration of the infection and symptoms,” family medicine Larry Boyd said.
For now, school districts like Seymour will spend the weekend thoroughly disinfecting the campus so that students can head back to class bright and early Monday morning.
Our newsroom reached out to seven other local school districts Thursday and Holliday and Graham were the only school district that had between ten and 20 confirmed flu cases.
Last week the WFISD reported 148 students were sent home with flu-like illness and 47 flu cases. WFISD officials said from all the reports they have received so far, they expect the numbers for this week to be higher.
Officials over at United Regional said they’ve seen 96 confirmed flu cases this month. That’s pretty low compared to January of last year when the hospital saw more than 300 positive cases of the flu. In 2017, United Regional saw 277 cases in the entire month of January.
Several Texoma ISD officials have responded to the widespread flu and illness.
- WFISD Public Information Officer Asley Thomas said, “From all the reports we have received so far, the numbers for this week (1/28-2/1) will be higher but we won’t have those numbers until Monday or Tuesday of next week. “
- Windthorst ISD Superintendent Lonnie Hise said, “The flu has not hit us very hard. I know other schools have been hit hard but we have been fortunate so far. We may have one or two. It is probably coming soon.”
- Electra ISD Superintendent Scott Hogue said, “We have zero cases of confirmed Flu at this time but the stomach virus is prevalent this time.”
- Olney ISD Superintendent Greg Roach said, “We are experiencing the flu but not to the extent of some of the neighboring districts.”
- Graham ISD Superintendent Sonny Cruse said, “Currently we have 18 cases of confirmed flu.”
- Holliday ISD Superintendent Kevin Dyes said, “Holliday ISD has only had 10 confirmed cases of Flu so far.”
- Iowa Park ISD Superintendent Steve Moody said, “We are very fortunate and have had less than 5 confirmed cases in the last week.”
