H1N1 forced Menominee to close Monday and Tuesday.

MENOMINEE -- The number is almost overwhelming.  Last Friday, 25 percent of Menominee students were absent from school, most of them with flu-like symptoms.

Menominee Superintendent Erik Bergh decided closing the school Monday and Tuesday was the best option.

"We felt that closing, cleaning, and getting some rest and recuperation time for everybody was important,” said Bergh, “to give us a more healthy environment in the schools so that we can go and do the teaching and learning without interruption."

Local parents seemed to agree with Bergh that closing the school is best for their children.

"I would rather have them home for two days,” said parent and substitute teacher Jean Stegeman, "allow some of what's going on to run its course than to have them there and exposed to the amount of germs that are floating around."

"Of course as kids, they're happy they're out of school,” said parent Beth Faucette.  “But they haven't caught it [H1N1] yet, so hopefully this will eliminate that.”

Bergh said the time off is meant more to get students healthy than anything else.  All the necessary cleaning was completed this weekend.

"In my 30 years in education, this is the first time I've experienced this, so it's rather abnormal,” Bergh said.  “We're hoping to see much closer to normal absence rates when school resumes Wednesday."

Students will have to make up these two missed days at a later date.

Next door, Wisconsin public schools don’t require students to make-up missed days if it's for an emergency closing.  However, no law like this exists in the state of Michigan.