St. Charles East High School Set to Reopen This Morning: UPDATE

St. Charles East High School will reopen Thursday after students had two days off. The school closures came after 800 students were absent on Monday - many suspected ill from a stomach virus.

The school district learned 120 were still ill as of Wednesday, said Jim Blaney, St. Charles Unit District 303's director of school and community relations. Custodial staff has been working to clean the school amidst the illnesses with the hopes of preventing the spread of the sickness.

Finals will begin as scheduled on Tuesday, January 17.

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St. Charles East High School will again be closed on Wednesday as school officials plan to reopen on Thursday. Wednesday will mark the second day in a row the school was closed after 800 of the high school’s 2,500 students were absent Monday --- many who were out ill from a suspected norovirus outbreak.

District 303 sent out the following message to parents Tuesday night:

While a clinical determination has yet to be made about the stomach virus that is going around, the symptoms are similar to norovirus, so, we are following the procedures regarding norovirus. We are now working to assist the Illinois Department of Public Health in their efforts to more clearly identify this virus.

The CDC recommends that people with norovirus be symptom free for 48 hours before returning to normal activities. With that in mind, classes at St. Charles East High School are cancelled on Wednesday, January 11 and will resume on Thursday, January 12.

Finals will begin as scheduled on Tuesday, January 17.

We are also asking parents to please keep your students at home on Wednesday and not allow groups of students to congregate.

East High School staff will again be calling parents on Wednesday, January 11 to ask about the condition of your child’s health.

The above information was updated at 6 p.m. on Jan. 10.

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ORIGINALLY POSTED AT 2:48 P.M. ON JAN. 10: District 303 officials are expected to decide this evening whether to resume classes at St. Charles East High School or cancel school again on Wednesday after hundreds of students were absent Monday -- many who were out ill from a suspected norovirus outbreak.

Classses were cancelled Tuesday after 800 of the high school's 2,500 students were absent on Monday.

Jim Blaney, St. Charles Unit District 303's director of school and community relations, told the Daily Herald teachers were calling hundreds of parents Tuesday to try and find out if their children would be in attendance on Wednesday before making a determination this evening on whether to reopen.

Norovirus, a stomach virus, could be to blame for many of the illnesses, officials have said. Norovirus causes inflammation of the stomach or intestines or both. The most common symptoms are diarrhea, throwing up, nausea and stomach pain, according to the CDC.

“We are not diagnosing students, we are not doctors and we are not epidemiologists. We can not say for certain it is Norovirus, but the symptoms the students are experiencing is consistent with a stomach virus,” Blarney said in a Monday evening press conference.

On Monday night, custodial staff at St. Charles East, and at buildings throughout the school district, workers used a different cleaning solution to work to combat germs. Based on information school officials received from the CDC and Kane County Health Department, they went with a bleach-based solution. This solution should be better at fighting Norovirus than the solution the district typically uses in cleaning its school, Blarney said.

District 303 started looking into how the illnesses were affecting its student body after 10 of its 14 boys varsity basketball players were unable to play Saturday in a game against St. Charles North. That game as well as the girls varsity basketball game were cancelled.

“We started to learn of some of the other athletes in some of the other sports were ill as well. So we started to wonder, OK, is this just localized to the athletic teams at St. Charles East or is it present in the school population,” Blarney said.

On Saturday, administrators sent an e-mail to parents letting them know about the sicknesses but also asking parents to reply with information on whether their child was sick and, if they felt comfortable, to tell them about those symptoms.

The response was overwhelming, and school officials learned many students were sick with symptoms consistent with a stomach virus. As of 10 a.m. on Monday, 800 of the 2,500 students at St. Charles East called in sick. On a typical day, there are 200 students absent, Blarney said.

District 303 officials were in close contact with the Kane County Health Department over the weekend for guidance and information. On Sunday, school officials said the district’s custodial staff and grounds crew had been working to make sure schools were thoroughly cleaned in preparation for the return students on Monday.

“As always, in consideration of others, we ask that students who are ill stay home,” school officials said in statements in recent days. “Please understand this virus is present in the entire community, it is not just affecting students in our schools.”

School officials are reminding everyone to practice good hygiene habits such as frequently washing your hands, covering your mouth when coughing, stay hydrated, and get the proper amount of rest.

Meanwhile, other schools within the school district have not seen the same level of absences as St. Charles East High School, according to the Chicago Tribune.

"We are monitoring the level of absences at schools," Blaney told the Chicago Tribune. "The only that is not what you normally see is East."

In addition, schools throughout the suburbs have not reported an outbreak of illnesses similar, or at the same level, as St. Charles East, the Daily Herald reports.

The newspaper reports:

Officials with the regional offices of education for DuPage, North Suburban Cook and McHenry counties said there have been no reports of higher absences due to illness among their school districts. A regional office spokesman for Lake County could not immediately be reached.
Kane County Regional Superintendent Patricia Dal Santo said St. Charles East is the only school with reported sickness outbreaks.

District 304 sent out the following tweet Tuesday to let parents know there had not been a spike in absences due to illnesses.