Contact the technician or IT assigned to your school for more information. Never ever double click on a file without virus checking it first . Email is text and cannot be a virus. A virus is an executable program. It is usually hidden in one of those cute little dancing baby type programs.
Friends often send viruses to friends unknowingly in cute things they got from other friends.
Best thing to do is trash ALL attachments unless they are information you have specifically asked someone to send you that you need to do your job. Word has macros that can be placed in documents. Macros are executable programs. You do not know what they will do, so never run them. You can set word to never run macros without permission.