Questions and worries about Ebola have prompted the state's top school board to approve emergency rules.
Local superintendents now have sweeping new authority to close public schools and send students home if they sense a threat.
The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education panel acted yesterday as a precaution.
Under the new rules, a local superintendent can dismiss schools due to an emergency that now includes "any actual or imminent threat to public health or safety, which may result in loss of life, disease or injury."
The Advocate reports superintendents can also remove a student or staff member if there is "reliable evidence or information" from a public health officer or physician that he or she has a communicable disease.