CULLMAN COUNTY – Cullman County Schools Superintendent Shane Barnette reported on Wednesday that attendance numbers are up system-wide for both students and staff after schools took a four-day weekend to battle the flu. While students stayed home Thursday and Friday, administrations, maintenance staff and many teachers returned to their schools to clean and disinfect facilities and equipment as much as possible.
Barnette reported, “I haven’t checked the numbers today, but our first two days back, every school was in the 90 percent or higher attendance rate, so it seems to be doing better now. I don’t guarantee that it will continue or anything, but we’ve had more kids attending school than we have in a long time.”
At the time last week when the decision was made to close the schools, attendance in some was down to 73 percent. Both students and staff were affected. Weighing into Barnette’s decision were not only ill kids, but a shortage of substitutes for all the teachers and bus drivers who were out sick. He told The Tribune that available faculty and staff are now sufficient to handle normal operations.
Said Barnette, “While I don’t guarantee that this will make a curb on the flu, I think it has helped us get some kids healthy and get our schools clean and everything, and our attendance is much higher this week.”
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