HILLMAN — Schools in Northeast Michigan may not have had many snow days this winter, but the number of days they have been forced to cancel class and extracurricular activities because of illness continues to rise.

On Monday, Hillman Community Schools Superintendent Carl Seiter announced that schools and all sporting events and practices will be canceled for the remainder of the week.

The announcement was made on the district’s Facebook page. It wasn’t immediately clear if the illness was among students or staff.

A certain percentage of the student body is required to be present for a school to get credit toward the state-required number of hours of instruction.

Hillman is one of several area schools that decided in the last several weeks to close to help prevent the spread of illness.

Bus drivers have also been impacted, which has caused transportation headaches for school systems and forced some schools to close because there weren’t enough drivers to transport students.

Rogers City, Alpena, and Atlanta schools had each previously canceled class, and other events, involving students and staff.

District Health Department No. 4 officials said last week influenza A and influenza B have been widespread in the region.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.