One Kansas school is breaking for winter break early. This comes after the community has suffered a lot of sickness that has affected both the student body and staff.
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By going to winter break, they’re hoping to prevent further spread of illness amid the cold and flu season. The Kansas school, Dexter Schools USD #471, announced it was abruptly shutting down for the semester on Monday.
“We are going through a tremendous amount of sickness right now and it seems to be spreading at a very high rate. Due to a high number of students and staff illnesses and the rate at which it continues to climb we will be dismissing for the semester at the end of the day today, Monday, December 15, 2025,” school officials told parents in a post shared to Facebook.
The Kansas school is postponing all extracurricular activities as well.
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“Not only are we concerned with student and staff sickness now, we don’t want to continue to spread the sickness and end up with students taking it to their extended families (grandma and grandpa) over the holiday break,” the statement continued.
Originally, the Kansas school wasn’t supposed to break for winter vacation until December 22. However, K.B. Criss, the Dexter school’s superintendent and principal, said there’s been a number of sick cases.
In fact, more than a fourth of the student body wasn’t in class on Monday due to being sick.
“The phone was ringing off the wall of kids being sick,” he said. “I think by nine o’clock, we had between 40 and 50 families call, and that’s a large percent of our student body.”
They’re having a range of symptoms.
“We had staff that was not only throwing up, but had diarrhea. We had body aches, fevers, bronchitis, strep throat, and the one common thing with all of it was terrible headaches,” he said.
The Kansas school appreciate everyone’s understanding at this time.
“We appreciate your understanding as we work to keep our students, staff, and school community healthy. Thank you for your continued support of USD #471 Dexter Schools. Have a great Holiday and we look forward to seeing everyone back and healthy at the start of the 2nd semester on Monday, January 5, 2026,” the Facebook statement concluded.