By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN

dobrien@dailynews.net

NESS CITY -- Students in Ness City were back in school today after an unplanned two-day vacation.

Earlier this week, the Ness County Health Department requested the city's three schools close their doors Wednesday and Thursday because of high absentee totals because of illness.

About a third of the 156 students at Ness City Junior-Senior High School were out with illness.

Also, about a third of the 100 students at Sacred Heart Elementary School were sick.

Tom Flax, principal at the junior-senior high school that serves grades 7 through 12, said this morning that number was down considerably from Tuesday.

About 18 or 19 students still were gone from the junior-senior high school today, Flax said.

"It's still high for a typical day for us," he said, "but it's definitely a marked improvement."

Flax said he also is encouraged by the numbers because some parents had decided to keep their students home today as a precautionary measure to give them an extra day to recuperate heading into the weekend.

Ness City's high school football game with La Crosse still is on tonight.

Ness City partners with Dighton High School for football. The team, called the Ness-Dighton Titans, will play tonight's game in Dighton for Dighton's homecoming.

At Ness City Elementary School, Principal Randall Jansonius -- who also is superintendent of USD 303 -- said absenteeism still was fairly high at his school but that some of those also were for precautionary reasons.

"It's a lot better than it was," Jansonius said in reference to earlier in the week. "From 11 (a.m.) Monday to 3 o'clock Tuesday, it went from 13 percent to 26 percent. It was so climbing so fast, and the count was headed in the wrong direction quickly. Definitely better today."

Sacred Heart also was back in school today, but no absentee totals were available this morning.