Rethinking Exclusion Policies

[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

Every school nurse has come across this situation:

Kiddo with illness that causes a fever is really not better, but parent doses him/her with something to lower it so they can go to school. Even with policies stating that child must be fever-free for 24 hours without the use of medications.

What will things look like now in a COVID-19 world? Without a vaccine or easy available testing, do you see parents sending in kids like this? (There's always someone, I believe.)

Also, if a student has a fever, how long do you think the exclusions will be now...?

[Flare, ASN, BSN]

yes, I do see parents sending their kids in with treated fevers as they always have. I am not entirely sure what can be done to combat it, especially when the child is instructed not to mention they were sick then are brought to the health office with a raging fever at noon and tell me that yes, they got meds. I'd say that I hope that things change after this dies down, but I think that people will pick up right where they left off. Possibly wth a more urgent need to not miss work due to a sick child. I will ensure that my boss and I have a discussion about this prior to restart

[iggywench, BSN, RN]

My district is supposed to be coming up with a protocol to use, if and when we return to school. I also feel like we need very specific instructions to give to the teachers, so they don't panic and send every student to the clinic who "feels warm" or coughs once.

[Flare, ASN, BSN]

I got advisement from my county school nurse assoc to start working now with admins to determine what the re-entry plan is going to be. I emailed the head honcho and let him know that things can not continue business as usual and that there will likely be a resurgence once we're back up and operational. So protocols have to be put in place to determine send home criteria, exclusion policy changes, including length of time before return, and perhaps even criteria for sending to the health office. The practice of sending a student for minor discomforts such as lotion and chapstick must cease. I even brought up to him about perhaps this being the prime time for getting a second nurse to help split responsibilities and for redundancy. It was not immediately shot down.

[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

18 hours ago, iggywench said:

so they don't panic and send every student to the clinic who "feels warm" or coughs once.

Many staff already did that pre-COVID 19, so I don't see that getting any better...

[ruby_jane, BSN, RN]

AAAND I bet we add cough to some kind of exclusionary criteria.

Despite the fact that the majority of data show (here in the NTX, it may be different where you are) that kids without severe immune compromise are generally asymptomatic and recover very quickly.

My point: By the time the kid has the fever or the cough, there's been days of viral shedding. But again...this is not new.