‘Tremendous amount of sickness’: Kansas school dismisses students early for winter break

(DEXTER, Kan.) — Class is out early for one Kansas school this holiday season.

Dexter Schools USD #471 announced Monday that they dismissed students and staff three days early for winter break due to widespread illness. Classes are scheduled to resume Monday, Jan. 5.

“We are going through a tremendous amount of sickness right now and it seems to be spreading at a very high rate,” the Facebook announcement reads, in part.

“Not only are we concerned with student and staff sickness now we don’t want to continue to spread the sickness and end up with students taking it to their extended families (grandma and grandpa) over the holiday break,” the post adds.

K.B. Criss, the school’s superintendent and principal, told ABC News that the rural K-12 school has between 250 and 300 students, and he believed around 25% to 35% of students were absent within the first hour of school Monday morning.

“The phone was ringing off the wall of kids being sick,” he said. “I think by nine o’clock, we had between 40 and 50 families call, and that’s a large percent of our student body.”

Criss added that most of the illnesses seemed to be respiratory, but staff and students were experiencing a wide variety of symptoms.

“The symptoms were ranging from all over the place. We had staff that was not only throwing up, but had diarrhea. We had body aches, fevers, bronchitis, strep throat, and the one common thing with all of it was terrible headaches,” Criss said, adding that other leading symptoms included congestion, coughs, and fever.

Some students and staff were diagnosed with RSV and the flu, according to Criss.

According to the school’s website, free testing is available for Flu A/B, RSV, Strep A and COVID.

Kansas currently has a low level of respiratory illness across the state, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationally, “the amount of acute respiratory illness causing people to seek health care is low,” according to the CDC, as is COVID-19 activity.

“Seasonal influenza activity continues to increase in most areas of the country,” according to the CDC, while RSV activity is increasing “in many Southeastern, Southern, and mid-Atlantic states.”

Dexter Schools USD #471 is located about 70 miles southeast of Wichita, near the Oklahoma border.