How often do you check for lice?

Specialties School

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It's the beginning of the year and here we're so busy with getting health concerns in the computer, meds set up, doctor's orders, immunizations checked, training staff, health cards filed, etc etc and the big concern on teacher's minds is lice! They think kids should be checked the first day. I don't have time to check an entire school the first day or week. Sure, it would be nice if that were possible. Does anyone manage to do that right off the bat? Do you wait for a teacher to ask you to check their class or do you have some sort of system? We have a no lice policy which was better than the no nit policy. I know it's been shown that having lice is not detrimental to a student being in school but our district will not pass that policy since there would be a huge backlash and no one wants to deal with it. Just wondering how everyone else handles this. Thank you!

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Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health, Home Care.

It 's written right in our policy--classroom checks and classroom parent notification when three or more unrelated cases in a grade level. I usually use a little wiggle room and check after two. Then if a student has been out , they have to be cleared by me or the Local Health Dept to return, then I do a follow up check in one week. We still follow the no-nit policy (I know, I know, no flaming please). That's just how it is. Last year in three elementary buildings of about 1000 kids, I had 42 cases.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health, Home Care.

One more thought, you itemized YOUR priorities (correctly). The teachers don't see those things and frankly don't care. Stick to your guns, you know what's more important. Head check a whole school in the first week? Absurd.

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Choose your priorities based on the needs of ALL the students in the school. Look for info from reputable sources (CDC, Your State Department of Health Services...) Offer that information to teachers and parents in a "Just the facts" way. "Your school nurse will be offering health information on a regular basis. This Month we are offering you information on the detection and prevention of lice and illness prevention through proper handwashing techniques.

Encourage prevention, and encourage parents to partner with the school to monitor their own children for various things, including lice. Once you have identified a child with lice, you'll need to come up with a way to remind yourself to recheck him/her. If parents don't kill the critters at home, in the bed, etc, then the child will just get them again. GREAT, just talking about this makes my head itch!! LOL. :)

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Wow, if my school followed a "no nit policy" I don't think we would have any kids to even have school. I work in a low-income poverty district and the most frustrating thing I deal with is the parents who don't clean out their kids hair when they have lice - we send them home for LIVE lice (nits can stay) and they are required to apply treatment and remove nits before returning. But the thing is, these parents are so damn lazy they don't complete the treatment. That's when I contact our social worker because the parent is being non-compliant. But yeah...our parents here don't give a damn if their kids have lice and the nurse tells them to take them out. But they will care when our social worker has them slapped with a big ass fine for their kids being absent too much due to lice!

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I've got a student who has missed 8 days due to lice - we've only been back for 12! Did a re-check today, nits galore. I wish we would do the "no lice" instead of "no nits," I'm not sure she'll ever be able to come back. Social worker is stopping by today though.

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Specializes in School nursing.
Wow, if my school followed a "no nit policy" I don't think we would have any kids to even have school. I work in a low-income poverty district and the most frustrating thing I deal with is the parents who don't clean out their kids hair when they have lice - we send them home for LIVE lice (nits can stay) and they are required to apply treatment and remove nits before returning. But the thing is, these parents are so damn lazy they don't complete the treatment. That's when I contact our social worker because the parent is being non-compliant. But yeah...our parents here don't give a damn if their kids have lice and the nurse tells them to take them out. But they will care when our social worker has them slapped with a big ass fine for their kids being absent too much due to lice!

^This.

Many of the kids in my school are also low income. We had a case of lice recently where we discovered the family couldn't afford the lice treatment and kept sending their child back with live lice. The school paid for the treatment, but then the family still won't apply it! It fact, they dyed their child's hair because they thought that would kill the lice! It didn't and after the child was sent home again after coming to school with lice, they finally used the treatment the school bought. She came back with nits, but no live bugs after that and could stay in school.

One student with lice at my school and we check every classmate the student has class with. We also check siblings.

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

i don't screen unless there is a suspected case. I simply don't have the time or resources to check 800 heads by myself and historically these type of screenings would not find anything anyhow

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Specializes in kids.

Never! they are not allowed in high school! :roflmao:

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Specializes in ccu.

We have a no-nit policy as well. I checked 104 kids today, d/t a sibling set having them. I found ONE kid. Ugh.

Anyway, I only check if there is suspicion of lice.

The one I found, when mom came to pick her up, stood in the office CRYING and picking the lice out with a kleenex. EW.

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I only check if there is a suspected case as well.

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