Monroe County Schools announced this morning they’ll be closed Thursday and Friday due to illness. This comes on the heels of similar announcements from several other eastern Tennessee school systems. Union and Scott county schools, as well as Oneida schools are all closed the rest of this week due to excessive illness-related absences.

The Christian Academy of Knoxville, which was closed yesterday and today, is being cleaned and disinfected; and parents have been asked to wash their kids’ backpacks, jackets and other items that could harbor germs.

Scott County officials said 13 percent of its students and 14 percent of its teachers called out sick on Tuesday, with additional numbers going home sick during the day.