3 East Tenn. schools close for illness

3 East Tenn. schools close for illness

MADISONVILLE (WATE) -- Three schools in East Tennessee are closed the rest of this week for illness, according to administrators.

Monroe County - 1 school

Madisonville Middle School will be closed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for illness. All school related activities are canceled for the same time period.

Administrators say it's the only school in the district with such high absence rates for illnesses.

Five hundred twenty students attend Madisonville Middle and Tuesday alone, 152 students were either absent or went home early.

Students with pre-existing health conditions were allowed to opt out of attending Tuesday.

Crews are sanitizing everything they can.

"The absentee rate is like 30 percent. Usually, we run for a school like 520. The average absenteeism is around 30 to 40 students," said Monroe County Assistant Director of Schools Tim Blankenship. 

"We had some stomach viruses with kids throwing up and that kind of thing. That's continued to spread. We did have a few parents that had called and notified us that their doctor's office had said they had the flu. So just because of the two different things, plus probably some general sinus and allergy stuff going with our attendance rate, we felt like it would be better to go ahead and close the school," Blankenship added.

The Madisonville Middle School-based clinic will be open Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

Loudon County - 2 schools

North Middle School in Lenoir City and Greenback School will be closed Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

A school official said on Monday, North Middle had 178 kids absent and Greenback and 105 students absent, along with 11 teachers.

The other Loudon County schools don't have nearly such high absence numbers, the official said.