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Estill County Schools shutter for the week due to increasing illness

Estill County Public Schools were hit with a double whammy Tuesday, as a water main break was followed by declining attendance figures due to illness that led to the cancellation of classes the rest of the week.
Estill County Public Schools
Estill County Public Schools were hit with a double whammy Tuesday, as a water main break was followed by declining attendance figures due to illness that led to the cancellation of classes the rest of the week.

It’s been a tumultuous week for public school students and staff in Estill County. Tuesday morning, Superintendent Charlie Brock announced students would leave early due to a water main break that left three schools without water. That would not be the last unpleasant surprise of the day.

“It’s just, events happen. Sometimes it’s outside of our control. And then we just have to do the best we can for our students and staff and community to deal with it, but it’s definitely one those things that’s unforeseen, and we just want to do what we can to continue educating our kids the best we can.”

Later that day, Brock called off classes for the rest of the week after the attendance rate fell to 82 percent.

“We called our local doctors’ offices, pediatricians, the health department and just inquired about if there’d been an uptick in illness and they all informed yes, there’d been an uptick in strep, flu and COVID.”

Brock said staff and custodians will deep-clean the schools and classes will resume Monday.

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John McGary is a Lexington native and Navy veteran with three decades of radio, television and newspaper experience.
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