The Lenoir City School district closed Thursday and Friday due to an increasing number of students, staff and, teachers who were affected with the sickness.

Last week many Lenoir City Schools students were affected with different kinds of diseases at the same time, causing concern at the schools. The school district announced on Wednesday that they would be canceling classes.

After influenza, flu-like illnesses, strep throat, and stomach bugs caused absence rates to spike, Lenoir City schools were closed for illness on Thursday and Friday to prevent the spread of disease and hopefully students could be better on Monday when they would be back to school. Knox County Schools and Anderson County Schools were also closed on Thursday and Friday

“We had 15% of students absent, but increased to 18% on Wednesday,” said Principal Orr.

Then Nurse Henry explained what student were out of school for,

“We had a lot of student with stomach virus and the flu,” said Nurse Henry.  

Two other East Tennessee School districts had announced Wednesday that they would be canceling classes.

Mike Sims, supervisor of support services for Lenoir City Schools, said over 200 high school students, 100 middle school students, and about 48 elementary school students were absent Wednesday.

Rachel Fugget (12) explained her thoughts on the school being out for sickness.

“I think that our school did not do enough to prevent more people from getting sick,” said Fugget.

This sickness has hit quite hard this year to many students in the  East Tennessee Schools , unlike any other year, hopefully the students could be better soon.