"no-nit"policies

Candy Stephens · Nov 1, 2000

We are a new company and would like to be included in all your mailings concerning school conferences or association conventions. Could you add our name and address to your mailing lists?

Neon Nits, LLC

9297 Rhea County Highway

Dayton, TN 37321

Candy Stephens, Manager

MD_Rn · Nov 2, 2000

I can't wait to hear the responses from this article... Nurse and Mom just spent over 3 days cleaning nits out of 2 little heads after an outbreak at school. It was awful! I knew the critters were dead and partials... but I couldn't get them back in class until everything was gone. It was a truly difficult experience, mostly for the kids. PLEASE, school nurses tell your parents about products that are beneficial... egg looseners and especially the LiceMeister comb... $150 dollars and 2.5 days later I found these products and couldn't have been happier! Proud to say, we are nit free and back in school.

AnneD · Nov 4, 2000

My record...1st year 83 children out of 763 with lice,some very heavly infested Insituted mass screeningsof all children after every major break ie Labor Day after New Year's and after Spring Break(many of our kids went across the border to visit family). Insisted that children be nit free but would be flexible if child was heavily infested and there was evidence that parents had treated the child and were making continuing effort to remove the nits.Children would be followed up in 2 weeks for reinfestation. Also researched and found non chemical ways to help with killing and nit removal. Educated parents and children. On the 2nd year on first screening 64 cases. Followed same procedures. Third year, initial screening yields 33 cases. Last screening that year yielded 18 cases. I left after that year so I don't know what happened but I disagree with Harvard. A no nits policy is effective. If you get rid of the nits you get rid of the lice and break the cycle as my experience illustrates.

JillR · Nov 5, 2000

From personal expreience I have a daughter that came home from school very often with head lice. I would treat her, call her friends parents (so that they could check and treat their children), and do everything we are told to do to get rid of this problem. This would happen at least three times a year that she would come home with head lice. There were some families that would not treat their children and the other children would just keep getting the head lice time and time again because of this.

A couple of years ago, the school district actived the no nit policy and I am happy to say that my daughter has only had one instance of head lice since then and that was after they started little league up and were forced to share helmets. My son who is in first grade has never had head lice and to my calcultions he should be on his fifth time by now if we did not have a no nit policy.

I know that it is a hassle, but it is much preferable to treating them monthly if not weekly during the school year.

jrae · Nov 17, 2000

Our school district has had a "No-Nit" policy for some years now. We feel this is reducing the number of head lice cases. We do have to educate parents to check and recheck to make sure their child remains nit free.

Has the use of olive oil on the hair to kill lice become popular in your area?

MollyJ · Nov 18, 2000

I don't think that our regs, which are heavily influenced by the state, have changed yet, but I think the policy is being questioned.

Our school is seeing a big emphasis on keeping the kid in the classroom and I think policies such as this one will be reviewed. As attested here, nit removal is tedious and trying for little kids and parents alike and EXPENSIVE. A lot of moms just won't do the battle with kids and they don't necessarily value their kid being in school regardless. It can be a real merry-go-round battle which results in the kid missing a lot of school.

My opinion is that fairly thorough nit removal results in greater ease of tracking reinfestation cases, but is not critical. From my perspective, the kids that become chronically reinfested from lack of thorough treatment of home environment is the biggest problem and I don't KNOW that demanding "perfect" nit removal solves this one. I don't know that it does not. I cannot say whether these chronic chases are being reinfested by their environment or the unhatched on their heads. I just think that some very poor homes will find it financially demanding to take it all to the laundry. Imagine the expense if you had to clean 1 to 3 complete sets of bedding at a laundromat. Some poor families don't have a vacuum cleaner. Are you going to do massive loads of laundry or buy groceries? For overwhelmed mothers, doing laundry, vacuuming, bagging or taking pillows and stuffed toys to the laundromat to put in a dryer is going to not be in their realm of possibility in their usually chaotic lives. I am not excusing, I am looking at what I view to be the "facts" of some households. I also think we need to look at classroom practices that might be responsbile for spread (one school I know attributed it to how winter coats and hats were piled together) and I think we need to let the kids themselves know what they can do to avoid spread--don't share hair doo-dads, hats, combs, lay on a pillow together to watch TV or a video. These are little girl things particularly. I would freak if I had little girls that got infested 3x a year like above poster just because it is an incredible load for a mother to resolve.

No answers, only opinions.