Speaking of Head Lice... - Page 3

I meant to quote the above on the last comment that I posted.

Am I the only one with an itchy head reading this thread? At my school we send a letter home to all the classmates. If we discover lice in 2-3 students in one class we will do a head check of the entire class. This is a public health issue and if we do not notify the parents of a potential infestation then how can we get the problem under control.

Nope.

I think I'm scratching hard enough to draw blood soon....

I don't have kids, but my nephew comes over for lunch a lot... I'd be bloody furious if the kid was sent home with even a chance of a head full of critters and nothing said.

It is a public health issue of sorts... but at the end of the day it's a nuisance - not a disease. And furthermore, most cases of headlice aren't transmitted in school and most kids that are found to have lice in school have probably been infested for some time. This is not to say that heads shouldn't be checked and that notifications needn't be made appropriately - both of those things should definitely be done, but it's high time that parents take some responsibility for their kids and check their kids heads on a regular basis. You don't have to be a nurse to look through a head of hair.

We had an issue where a single student was sent home in my old district and the PARENTS went on facebook and posted the name of the infested kid

Pediculosis

Read the entire position statement.

Here is part:

"Children found with live head lice should remain in class, but be discouraged from close direct head contact with others. The school nurse should contact the parents to discuss treating the child at the conclusion of the school day (Frankowski & Bocchini, 2010). Students with nits only should not be excluded from school (American School Health Association, 2005, Frankowski & Bocchini, 2010, Pollack, Kiszewski & Spielman, 2000), although further monitoring for signs of re-infestation is appropriate. It may be appropriate to screen other children who have had close head-to-head contact with a student with an active infestation, such as household family members, but classroom-wide or school-wide screening is not merited (Andresen & McCarthy, 2009). In cases that involve head lice, as in all school health issues, it is vital that the school nurse prevent stigmatizing and maintain the student’s privacy as well as the family’s right to confidentiality (Gordon, 2007). ...."

One more resource.

https://identify.us.com/idmybug/head...AQS/index.html

I work at an Elementary school in a fairly large district. We do notify parents if children in the classroom have headlice but without the mentioning of names or severity. We are only required to send children home with live lice, but we give parents the option of taking their child home if only nits are found to start the removal process. If one child from a class is found to have lice, an entire classroom check is conducted right away. In all of my classroom lice checks, there have always been multiple kids. Teachers typically never put up a fight, and most of them participate in the classroom checks. We also pull siblings of children from an affected classroom just to double check... It's better to be safe than sorry!