Need help with wording.

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Specializes in School Nurse. Having conversations with littles..

OK friends. My admin. and secretary has asked me to put a message together to parents, to be posted to our Facebook page. Probably will send a note home as well.

This is the situation- We are trying to get a terrible cycle of illness stopped at one of my schools that has been hit very hard with many different sick bugs. We have had numerous kids come to school. Looking sick, but not enough temp./ acting sick enough to send home. When we ask them if they have had medicine before school...already this morning. Many of them have said yes. And, after asking a few more questions. Pretty sure its Tylenol/Ibuprofen.

Soooo... I have been asked to put a message together asking parents NOT to give Tylenol/Ibuprofen to their kids and send them to school sick. Anyone got a good suggestion of how to word it?

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Community Health, School Health.

Dear parents,

We have seen a sharp increase in the incidence of illness over the past several weeks. Unfortunately, we have had several students come to the health office with symptoms of illness stating that they have been given a fever-reducing medication prior to coming to school. While we of course want students to miss the least amount of school as possible, we understand that students best recover from illness at home. In addition, coming to school while ill with a fever spreads the illness to other students. Our current outbreak cannot be contained unless we have the cooperation of all parents and students. I would like to reiterate that all students must remain home until they have been FEVER FREE FOR 24 HOURS WITHOUT THE USE OF FEVER-REDUCING MEDICATIONS (Motrin, Advil, Tylenol, acetamiophen, ibuprofen, Tylenol cold, Pedia Care). in addition, if your child has vomited within the last 24 hours, or has diarrhea, they must stay home. We thank you for your help in keeping as many illnesses as possible out of our school.

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

Students must be fever free without the use of any medications or fever reducers for 24 hours before returning to school - ha posted the capsule version as MHD- who was just a whole lot more eloquent about it!!

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Specializes in School Nurse. Having conversations with littles..

MHD. I love it. Thanks for your help. Happy Thursday!

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Specializes in School Nurse. Having conversations with littles..
Students must be fever free without the use of any medications or fever reducers for 24 hours before returning to school

I love this too Flare. I am thinking about a tattoo with that on it. :)

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Specializes in Pediatrics, Community Health, School Health.

The frustrating thing is, how many times have we all said over and over in newsletters, in person, etc. the rules for returning to school and they STILL don't cooperate. I just had a K kid this morning complaining of a sore throat and stomach ache. Her throat is ugly! I have several kids out with +Strep right now. As I am entering her info into the computer and getting ready to call mom, she casually mentions "I threw up twice this morning before I left for school and mommy said I still had to come". Believe me, it was very satisfying to call Mom and make her come pick the kid up.

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Specializes in School Nurse. Having conversations with littles..
The frustrating thing is, how many times have we all said over and over in newsletters, in person, etc. the rules for returning to school and they STILL don't cooperate. I just had a K kid this morning complaining of a sore throat and stomach ache. Her throat is ugly! I have several kids out with +Strep right now. As I am entering her info into the computer and getting ready to call mom, she casually mentions "I threw up twice this morning before I left for school and mommy said I still had to come". Believe me, it was very satisfying to call Mom and make her come pick the kid up.

:no: :nurse: :banghead:

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Specializes in School nursing.
The frustrating thing is, how many times have we all said over and over in newsletters, in person, etc. the rules for returning to school and they STILL don't cooperate. I just had a K kid this morning complaining of a sore throat and stomach ache. Her throat is ugly! I have several kids out with +Strep right now. As I am entering her info into the computer and getting ready to call mom, she casually mentions "I threw up twice this morning before I left for school and mommy said I still had to come". Believe me, it was very satisfying to call Mom and make her come pick the kid up.

:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

I also love the kids that don't take a fever reducer, temp was 100 at home, now 101+ at school. Reports parent was aware and even took their temp and was like "just go see the nurse if you still don't feel well."

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.

I'm not saying to do nothing but we all know a reminder isn't going to have any affect on the target recipients of the message. The single biggest thing a school district could do to decrease illness and increase attendance is to eliminate perfect attendance awards. But that "ain't" happening. I launched an effort to do that one time...we still have perfect attendance awards.

The other really effective thing you could do is check every kid in the affected grade level's temperature at 1:30 pm and exclude those with fever from school the next day. Repeat that for 3 days and you might be able to knock it out.

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Specializes in school nursing.

I like to remind parents that there have been instances of schools closing for a few days due to increased incidence of illness....as in, keeping your kid home for one day is WAYYYY better than trying to find a babysitter for several days in a row because your kid helped spread disease. But, that's for the parent's I know have a hard time understanding the aspect of "for the greater good"

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Specializes in IMC, school nursing.

Thankfully we don't acknowledge perfect attendance. Best thing ever!

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Specializes in ED, School Nurse.

I had a high school student come in after vomiting twice at home and once at school. Wanna know why she came in? So she could take her CPR certification class at CNA school. Yep. I'm not even kidding. "We all got sick from the nursing home where we do clinicals. One girl even left in the middle of CPR so she could go throw up and then she came back." Awesome. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

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