Meigs County Schools will be closed Friday because of illness among students, staff and administrators, Director of Schools Don Roberts said this afternoon.
Roberts said the percentage of students absent had been hovering around 14 percent all week, but today it spiked to more than 20 percent.
"It's throughout the system," he said. "It's faculty, food service, paraprofessionals. I'm fighting it, but I'm not feverish."
Roberts said he consulted with a local physician who reported high numbers of patients with flu-like symptoms.
Schools officials decided to give students and teachers a long weekend to get well and to give maintenance and custodial staff time to do a thorough cleaning.
"We'll re-evaluate things on Monday," Roberts said.