BELLE — Maries R-2 administrators reported on Jan. 28 that attendance within the district was up at the end of December, but dropped in January to 92 percent due to illness. They are taking precautions to prevent the spread. Attendance dropped further after the meeting.

“We’ve got it terrible in the elementary school where parents are reporting high fevers,” said Superintendent Dr. Lenice Basham. “In the middle and high school, we have kids with a headache. The high school and middle school have stayed above 92 percent.”

Attendance was 94 percent at Belle Elementary School (BES) for December, according to BES Principal Bobbi Robertson’s report. It dropped to 92 percent by the time the January board report was due. Basham reported another four percent drop last week.

“The elementary school attendance was at 88 percent yesterday (Jan. 30),” Basham said. “Parents have taken kids to the doctor and are reporting it’s just a virus.”

Basham reminded parents to keep kids home if they are sick.

“Keep kids home if they have a fever,” she said. “They need to be without fever for at least 24 hours with no medicine before they can be sent back to school — fever-free for at least 24 hours.”

Teachers sent notifications out on Jan. 24 informing parents the water fountains would be closed, but water bottle stations remained in place, to help mitigate the spread of the illnesses. Basham confirmed the measure was still in place.

“We left the water filling stations open but shut down the fountains to prevent germs being passed around at the fountains. Our custodians are deep cleaning multiple times throughout the day to hit those heavy areas.

School nurses Megan Lewis and Ashley Valley are keeping parents informed.

“Nurse Megan and Nurse Ashley are doing a great job of sharing information with parents and keeping students home when sick,” Basham said.

Illness has also impacted recent daily attendance at Maries R-1, according to Superintendent Teresa Messersmith at the Jan. 28 Board of Education meeting.

The superintendent shared the previous month’s attendance statistics with the board. She said the attendance figures at the next board meeting would likely be lower because of recent illness.

“Yesterday we were at 19 percent of our students at home,” she said. “So we’re getting to the point where we’re really watching. Today was about the same.”

Messersmith said she had been in contact with another district dealing with similar issues and discussed deep clean policies with that superintendent. Maries R-1 administrators planned to keep monitoring the situation.

Later in the meeting, Elementary School Principal Shanda Snodgrass shared that a third-grade family night promoting MAP test preparation scheduled for Jan. 30 was in danger of postponement because one classroom only had five students in attendance that day, and the other classroom only had seven students.

The Vienna School District Facebook page shared a reminder about the district’s illness policy on Jan. 27. Parents also received notification through the ClassDojo platform. Students must be fever-free without the use of fever-reducing medications for 24 hours before returning to school. More information about the policy is available in the district’s handbooks, which are available on its website at mariesr1.k12.mo.us.

On Monday afternoon, Messersmith said attendance had improved to about 89 percent for the day. Three staff members were absent because of illness. She encouraged parents to keep their children home until they are fever-free for 24 hours and to talk to them about hygienic practices such as proper hand-washing to stop the spread of sickness.

Similar numbers are being shared in the Gasconade County R-2 School District, according to Superintendent Dr. Jeri Kay Hardy.

“Last week we had a lot of staff out,” Hardy said. “Gerald Elementary School (GES) was our lowest percentage of attendance. It looks as if we’re starting to bounce back, but we had a couple of really bad days there with staff issues.”

While attendance numbers have been low at GES, around 82 percent at one point, Hardy reported the remainder of the district has managed to stay around 90 percent attendance or above.

“Symptoms are fever and headache,” Hardy said. “A lot of Flu A. We’ve had some that have called it Flu A, but we’re unsure if they were tested.”

In an attempt to combat the spread of illness, Hardy said they have reinstated COVID cleaning measures.

“We did put our COVID protocols back into effect for sanitation over the weekend,” she said. “Our custodians have thoroughly disinfected all buildings.”

If buildings district-wide drop below 80 percent attendance, the district runs the risk of being closed temporarily to conduct deeper cleaning and help further prevent the spread of illness.

“The last time that happened was around 2000-01 school year,” Hardy said.