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MIDDLEBOURNE - A jump in flu-like illness among Tyler County Schools students and teachers led officials to close all four schools this week.

Classes are scheduled to resume Thursday, giving people a chance to recover and hopefully slowing the spread of the virus.

Dorothy Lockett, assistant administrator for the Wetzel-Tyler Health Department, said officials decided last week to close the schools for the first part of this week due to a high level of illness among students and staff.

"We have been monitoring the attendance at Tyler County. Last week it started jumping up and we began talking to the superintendent about the possibility of closing schools," she said.

Two of the county's four schools saw their absence rate jump from more than 30 percent to more than 40 percent between the start of the school day and noon on Friday. The district's prekindergarten school had more than half of its students out sick, she said.

Lockett said in addition more and more teachers and staff were calling in sick, and there was a fear some schools would not have enough personnel to cover classrooms. Lockett said nearly all of the absences were due to "flu-like illness."

Wednesday is a holiday and schools already were scheduled to be closed, Lockett said. The decision was made to close the schools Monday and today to give students and staff a full five days to recover.

"We hopefully won't be seeing as much absenteeism when students return to school Thursday," Lockett said.

Wetzel County has seen high numbers of absences, she said, but no where near the numbers seen in Tyler County, she said.

Liza Cordeiro, spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Education, said Tyler appears to be the only county closing schools due to the swine flu.

"No other school system has contacted the WVDE about shutting down in the recent future," she said in an e-mail interview. "As soon as they do, they are required to post on the WVDE school closing link listed on our site."

Officials with Tyler County Schools could not be reached for comment Monday.