KAUKAUNA, WI (WTAQ) – St. Ignatius Catholic School in Kaukauna canceled classes for everyone on Wednesday after a large percentage of students were either absent or sent home sick this week.
“We have 180 kids in our school and had about 28 kids sick. Then on Tuesday, we were thinking ‘oh gosh, we’re reaching critical mass.’ I reached out to the diocese and the county looking for some precedent,” Headmaster Nathan VandeHey tells WTAQ News, “We have a couple of cases of influenza and lots of fevers. And we have 25% of kids in grades three on down to preschool missing.”
The numbers seemed to drop Tuesday morning from 28 down to 22. But the school nurse’s office was busy as the day progressed.
“As the day went on, we had fever fever fever fever, we had about nine kids leave on top of the 22. Now we’re at 31,” VandeHey says, “They have to be out for 24 hours after that and we felt it was necessary to just call a day.”
But the cancellation was generally just for students. Staff showed up to work on Wednesday with gloves and disinfectant wipes.
“We scrubbed every hard surface in the building. Every LEGO in the preschool area – every hard surface, literally. In the gym, we scrubbed every cone and every ball that they use,” VandeHey says, “We’ve gone through – I don’t even know how many of those super-duper disinfectant wipes. It’s probably in the thousands at this point, maybe 2,000. And the building got a good scrubbing.”
Classes are expected to resume Thursday.
