By Staff
Pines Elementary given green light by health officials
Staff Reports
After being shut down for four days this week because several students became sick at the same time, Pines Elementary School in Plymouth will reopen Monday.
Following an intensive four day investigation, experts with the North Carolina Division of Public Health on Friday recommended the school, which has about 900 students, resume classes.
A survey of students and the investigation found nothing to suggest that there was an infectious disease or an environmental problem at the school that could sicken students.
School officials talked with the Public Health Regional Surveillance Team and state health department employees by telephone Friday afternoon. Four physicians with the state health department’s general communicable disease control division and occupational and environmental epidemiology division and the health team agreed that opening school is the appropriate action based on their investigation.
The experts said that none of the children who had reported illness had fevers, which rules out the likelihood of an infection as the cause of their symptoms. A thorough environmental investigation inside the school found nothing unusual, according to the release. The health team that spent four days inside the school didn’t exhibit any symptoms, which led experts to conclude there is not an environmental problem in the school, the release states.