Crews clean James Irwin Charter campus after closing for illness

On the outside, James Irwin Charter Elementary looks empty. On the inside, a three-person team is sanitizing and wiping down every corner someone might have touched.

They’re using a spray machine that disperses a disinfectant across multiple surfaces. CEO of the schools, Jonathan Berg, says it’s supposed to “kill 99.9 percent of the germs.”

He made the decision this week to close their campuses on Friday. Over the last week, teachers and students have been calling in sick.

Berg says, “Yesterday we were at 10 percent of the students and more coming down sick.”

He’s hoping having this extra day off will allow the cleaning crew to thoroughly go through part of the school and disinfect it.

The team makes sure to go in every corner, wiping down every chair and desk before students and faculty come back.

Berg says, this kind of crews usually come twice a year, but during a flu season like this one, it calls for extra rounds of sanitation.

“By taking this day off, it gives us four days and it gives us time to do an extra deep cleaning to eliminate as many germs as possible,” he says.

Now he’s hoping the illness taking everyone out of class doesn’t creep back.