Students, staff, and teachers are dealing with a possible outbreak of a highly contagious stomach bug at a South Bay elementary school.

Now officials are working to disinfect a classroom, picnic tables, and other common areas to keep it from spreading.

Nordstrom Elementary School in Morgan Hill sent 11 children home Monday and the county health department is working to confirm whether the illness could be norovirus.

At this time, it’s not clear if the kids got sick at school, but they are all from the same classroom.

It appeared to be business as usual on campus Tuesday but outback a pressure washer was deployed to scrub dozens of lunch tables and surfaces around campus.

“They all had similar symptoms which had started as early as Friday and over the weekend some were ill and up until yesterday,” Lanae Bays, with Morgan Hill Unified School District, said.

All 11 kids, most complaining of stomach ailments and other flu-like symptoms, are from the same transitional kindergarten classroom. A few adults also became ill.

Parents were notified and advised to keep sick kids at home for a day or two.

“If the child exhibits symptoms, the child should be kept home, if they have been ill they should stay home for 24-48 hours after the symptoms have subsided,” Bays said.

Overnight, the suspect kindergarten classroom was cleaned with a disinfectant, along with some other common areas.

Playground apparatus is also to be sanitized. The district said no new illness was reported on Tuesday.

“It does seem like a big deal because they are mostly from the same classroom, some parents did elect to keep the siblings of those affected home today as a precaution but other than that it’s very much business as usual,” Bays said.

According to the CDC, the most common symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain but other symptoms include fever, headaches and body aches.

A person usually develops symptoms 12 to 48 hours after being exposed to norovirus and most people with norovirus illness get better within 1 to 3 days.

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