Flu outbreak closes 3 schools in Branchburg, NJ Monday
BRANCHBURG, New Jersey (WABC) -- A flu outbreak closed three schools in Branchburg Township, New Jersey for the day Monday.
The district says there is "a flu outbreak among essential personnel" resulting in the closure of Branchburg Central Elementary, Stony Brook and Whiton Elementary. The superintendent confirmed that it was the school bus drivers that had the flu.
"Midafternoon yesterday, I got a call from our transportation supervisor that our bus drivers were down with the flu and that he was unable to get substitute drivers and that we would not be able to run our transportation routes this morning," said Rebecca Gensel, Superintendent.
The enrollment for the three schools is a total of 1,400, not including the staff.
The district is taking this opportunity to clean and disinfect all the buses.
The district has been successful at making sure the kids stay well. There's been no flu outbreak in the student body.
"We've been keeping on top of disinfecting the buildings for weeks now, so it's absolutely not about the students and only about transportation," Gensel said.
With that many drivers hit with the flu, there was no way to replace them in time for the Monday morning pickup.
"We made the decision to use our emergency closing procedures so we could come in today and put a contingency plan in place for the rest of the week that would allow us to get the kids to school from tomorrow onward," said Gensel.
School is expected to be back in session for Tuesday with substitute drivers.
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