UC School Sickness Rates Average Overall

While Warren County Schools closed for the week, in part due to sickness, other Upper Cumberland districts reporting average absentee rates.

DeKalb County Attendance Supervisor Joey Reeder said the district’s absences are slightly higher than normal right now but nothing is out of the ordinary for flu season. Reeder said the only symptom his team looks for when deciding if a student needs to be sent home is a fever.

“Kids that aren’t feeling well, even adults, we wake up not feeling well, you’ll get up and stir around and go ahead and go to work or go to school, a lot of times you’ll get to feeling better,” Reeder said. “So we certainly don’t want sick kids at school spreading the flu but if you don’t have a fever or feel at all like it then we encourage them to come.”

Putnam County Attendance Supervisor Chris Pierce said the district’s absence rate over the past week has been normal at five to six percent. Pierce said he thinks the severe weather in January may have helped mitigate the spread of sickness by keeping everyone separate.

“Course the last couple of weeks where we’ve been in school, solid weeks, this stuff tends to show up,” Pierce said. “So we’ll see how the rest of February goes.”

White County Attendance Supervisor Bryan Haley said absences at the middle and high schools are slightly elevated but the district is not looking at shutting anything down due to sickness. Haley said it is typical to see these numbers ebb and flow during this time of year. Haley said the middle and high schools were doing well last week and other schools that had more sickness last week are fine now.

Overton County Attendance Supervisor Cristy Miller said the district is seeing an absence rate around ten percent, which is average for the county. Miller said two schools in particular were seeing more absences but would not share which schools they were.