Schools closed due to illness

By DAMON LAWRENCE

rclawrence@bellsouth.net

Sick students and teachers will have some extra time to try and get better before returning to school.

Roane County officials called off schools today, March 3, because of illness.

Roane County students and teachers also got an unexpected three-day weekend last month when school was closed on Feb. 22 because of illness.

Many other school systems throughout East Tennessee have called off classes recently due to illness.

The flu has been behind a lot of the recent school closures, and the number of cases diagnosed by doctors as flu or flu-like continue to rise.

The East Tennessee Regional Health Department tracks the number of cases in 15 counties.

While figures show that Roane County only had an increase of seven diagnosed cases between Feb. 22 and Feb. 29, the number for the entire 15 county region jumped by 580 during that same time span.