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Deirdre Cline was starting her second day on the job as interim superintendent of Wyoming County Schools on Monday when reports of a possible outbreak started coming in.
“Our vigilant school nurse at Wyoming County East High School reported that there was a possible skin infection at Wyoming East,” Cline said. “She had sent several students home to receive medical care via their families and doctors and she wanted us to know about it.”
As the day went on, students at that school were sent home, and anyone with sores, lesions, a rash or itchy, red spots was advised to go to the doctor and to follow medical advice. Soon there were reports of similar outbreaks at Westside High School and Mullins Elementary/Middle School.
“What we did was to be absolutely aggressive in our service of children and to ensure their health and well-being. So we shut all schools down [Tuesday], all of them. All schools in the entire county, because we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Cline said.
That move kept all 3,400 public school students in the county home on Tuesday.
Because there were multiple students with siblings in affected schools or who played on sports teams at the high schools, school officials ordered a deep clean of all schools by custodial staff. Cline said the schools reporting actual cases will stay closed until Monday for a professional deep cleaning.
“We have hired them to clean the turf football fields at both high schools, to clean the interior spaces of the field houses and any places that kids would use communally or otherwise right now,” Cline said. “That would include areas in the gyms, areas in any buildings that are being used by sports teams or children right now.”
The ongoing closures affect about 1,300 students. Westside High voluntarily postponed its homecoming game and festivities planned for Friday. The scheduled football game may take place if cleaning of the field turf and bleachers is completed on time.
So far there’s been no formal diagnosis of what exactly has caused the outbreak.