ELLICOTT, COLO. -- Students in Ellicott School District 22 were sent home Monday after news that a first grade teacher died the night before.

Tracy Nelson, who had been with the district full-time since 2002, died in her sleep Sunday night.

"I didn't know anyone that didn't like Tracy," Ellicott Superintendent Terry Ebert said.  "She was a great person, a great teacher and a great employee."

District officials didn't get the news until Monday morning.  By then, it was too late to cancel bus service.  Instead, students were sent home around 10 a.m.

"When we have these types of situations we have a crisis management team that we try to get together as quickly as possible," Ebert said.  "So we were scrambling to get that team put together and collected as quickly as we could.  As soon as we got the team together we started processing the situation and trying to put together a plan of how we're going to cope with the situation today.  We're concerned about the students, but it was probably hardest on the staff."

The district is a member of the Pikes Peak Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) and counselors from that organization will be on hand starting Tuesday to help students and staff during this difficult time.

"In a small town like Ellicott, they really don't have the manpower in town, so we're able to dispatch people out to their area in higher numbers to help handle a crisis like this," BOCES Technical Director Brian Bylund said.  "We have several counselors that support several schools in the area and what we do in cases like this is send all of the counselors we have to one specific district in times of crisis."

District officials are encouraging students to take advantage of the counseling services.

"We think the best thing would be for the kids to be in school and if they do have problems, we'll have people in here to help them," Ebert said.  "Also, we want the parents to let us know if they're seeing something at home so we can help them, so we can work together to help."

The district's teachers have been debriefed on what to look for over the coming days and weeks.

"Basically what we're going to be looking for are students who might be at risk as a result of this situation with Mrs.. Nelson," Ebert said.  "Sometimes these types of things trigger other memories or issues with students and even adults.  Maybe a student didn't necessarily have Mrs. Nelson, but recently had a loss in their family, something like that, so that's what we'll be keeping a close eye on and the counselors will be working with some of those kids this week, just checking on them to see how they're doing, making sure that they're not suffering without having someone to talk to and try to help them with the situation."

The counselors will be there as long as they're needed.

"We're looking our for our students and our staff," Ebert said.  "It's a big loss for all of us."

Memorial announcements will be posted on the district's website.