The flu bug closed a parochial school in Tomah Friday, but schools in the Tomah School District were reporting only a modest increase in absences.

St. Paul Lutheran closed Friday due to an increase in absences due to illness. Pastor David Brandt said that a large number of students and several teachers were absent from school on Thursday.

“We had about one quarter of our student body gone on Thursday,” Brandt said Friday. “We had two teachers gone and probably two more that would have been gone today.”

Absences in the public schools were considerably lower. Tomah School District Business Manager Greg Gaarder said Tomah High School and Tomah Middle School had the highest absence rates. Both were at 13.5 percent, about twice the normal rate for late October.

At the low end were elementary schools in Oakdale, Wyeville, Warrens and Camp Douglas, where absence rates were between six and seven percent.

Gaarder said the district has no plans to close any school, but acknowledged conditions can change quickly. He added that several strains of illness are impacting students and staff, not just the highly publicized H1N1 virus.

“There’s a lot of junk going around,” Gaarder said. “This thing changes on a day-to-day basis.”

The district doesn’t have a policy that links absence rates to school closures. Gaarder said those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.

A fall festival scheduled for Sunday at St. Paul School was cancelled. Students scheduled to sing during a church service on Sunday will perform as scheduled.

The school planed to reopen on Monday.

Staff reporter Paul Medinger contributed to this report.