Schools spend day sanitizing after sickness causes closings
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McNAIRY COUNTY, Tenn. — Staff across three school districts have spent Thursday and Friday sanitizing hundreds of classrooms after schools in McNairy, Hardeman and Madison counties are forced to close because of sickness. Bethel Springs Elementary School Principal Terry Moore said about 10 percent of students were out with stomach flu or strep this week. “We’re making a conscious effort to disinfect everything we can, so hopefully by the next two days we’ll be back on Monday and things will be a whole lot better and won’t be as much passed around,” he said. Moore said the staff of two custodians at the school have wiped and sprayed, mopped and swept the facilities. “They just disinfect the tables, chairs, clean floors, whatever they can to get it clean,” he said. Mike Black has worked at the school for 15 years. He said he only remembers sickness being so widespread through the school one other time about 10 years ago. Black said cleaning the lockers used by 5th-8th graders is crucial to killing germs. “Kids touch them every day all day long, so they probably have as much germs as anything in this building,” he said. Black said they also prove to be the most difficult to clean. “The tables and chairs are easy to wipe and spray, door handles are easy, but these take a lot more detail to wipe all these down.” Rooms such as the cafeteria and bathroom are disinfected daily, according to Moore. When asked if he had second thoughts on being one of the staff members in charge of fighting the war against the school building’s bacteria, Black laughed and said, “that’s what they pay me for.” Black added his immune system is also functioning at 102 percent. By noon Friday, staff at the elementary school had used more than 15 tubes of Clorox wipes and several cans of Lysol.
