IIllness forces closure across Richards ISD

Illness is causing Richards ISD to close its doors for the remainder of the week for a deep disinfecting to hopefully stop the spread of illness within the district.

Richards Superintendent William Boyce stated as of Tuesday the district had approximately 44 students out within two days due to illness. Boyce said for a district the size of Richards, which only has 187 students, that’s a significant number of students to be out with illness.

The school plans to shut its doors from Wednesday, Feb. 5, through Friday, Feb. 7. “It’s getting progressively worse, so we want to get it stopped before it becomes more widespread,” said Boyce. The district plans to go through each part of the building cleaning and disinfecting.

Richards has a home basketball game scheduled Friday night, Feb. 7, for senior night. Boyce said those games are difficult to make up so the games will be played as scheduled. He stated the gym will be thoroughly cleaned by then and will be ready to go for the game.