About 1,000 students at Stafford High School fell ill.
According to Stafford County Public Schools spokeswoman Sandra Osborn, the students are out sick with absent with flu-like/gastrointestinal symptoms.
“Our Health Services team is working with the local health department to identify the root cause of the illness,” Osborn told Potomac Local News.
Meanwhile, the school’s custodial staff will give the school building, at 63 Indians Lane in Stafford, a deep clean tonight. All athletics and activities are canceled through Sunday.
A total of 2,100 students attend the school.
Here is a portion of a letter from Stafford High School Principal Allen Hicks sent to parents:
Our school is currently experiencing an illness outbreak. Several students and staff members have reported flu-like/gastro-intestinal symptoms and are absent. We are currently investigating the symptoms and are working with the health department to identify the root cause of the illnesses. At this time, we do not anticipate closing the building. Learning will continue. Students will be given ample time to make up any missed work upon their return to school. We remained very concerned, and will continue to monitor the situation alerting you to any changes we may need to make to our operations.
Our custodial staff will conduct an extensive and thorough wipe down of the entire school this evening. High touch point area cleaning, along with electrostatic cleaning, will continue throughout the day and evening tomorrow.
At this time, the following mitigation strategies are recommended for any time of illness and we encourage you to follow these strategies to prevent further spread. Sometimes people might become infected by touching something, such as a surface or object, with viruses, to include the flu on it and then touching their mouth or nose.
