ELKINS — North Elementary School will be closed on Friday due to an outbreak of influenza at the school, officials said.

Randolph County Superintendent of Schools Gabriel “Gabe” Devono said Thursday afternoon the decision had been made to close North Elementary for the day on Friday.

“We had more than 100 students out sick today and about 10 staff members out as well,” Devono said. “Today we had several more students get sick and we had a couple teachers go home sick as well.”

Devono said closing the school will hopefully prevent any other children or staff from getting sick.

“We made the decision to close Friday because we were worried we wouldn’t be able to fully staff the school,” he said. “So we’re going to go in and clean the school while it’s closed.

“We don’t want any more students or staff to get sick, so this seemed the best option open to us at this time.”

Devono added that no other Randolph County schools have been so severely affected by the flu this school year.

Officials plan for North Elementary to be open on Monday.

Last week, an outbreak of the flu closed multiple schools in Alabama, Idaho, North Carolina and Mississippi, as officials struggled to find enough healthy teachers to staff the schools.

A total of 25 states are experiencing high levels of the virus, according to the latest Center for Disease Control influenza report.