Honey Creek Elementary is undergoing a thorough cleaning this weekend after an outbreak of gastroenteritis, along with other flu-like sicknesses, kept students and teachers home this week.

Rockdale County Public Schools spokesperson Cindy Ball said HCE saw absentee rates of about 10 percent, with 13 sent home due to gastroenteritis, also called the stomach flu, on Thursday.

On Friday, about 18 percent were absent. She added some of those absent today may have been kept home to prevent getting sick, after a letter and phone message went out to parents on Thursday.

"We had collaborative discussions with Health Department officials to ensure we had the right cleaning procedures in place and had an additional custodial team go after-hours yesterday to do a top/down power cleaning," wrote Ball.

The school will have another power cleaning today after hours. "With the help of the weekend we hope to see our students and staff return healthy on Monday but will continue to monitor the situation."