Students with attendance issues

[SchoolNurseBSN]

I had a mom call and say that her daughter was confirmed with the H1N1 flu after she had missed 3 days. Now, this is a student with tons of absences and tardies. The mom just lets her stay home whenever she wants. Then, if somebody asks for a doctor's note - she proceeds to yell and curse at anybody in the immediate vicinity. This mom is the only person I have ever had to have escorted out of my clinic because I would not let her student stay at school with the worst case of conjunctivits I have seen to this day! Go figure - she gets mad when you want the kid at school AND she gets mad when you need the kid to go home!

Well, our local health department notifies our district if anyone tests positive and then the school is notified. We have not been notified of this case and no physician note can be produced. Ok, so now mom says it was not H1N1 but just regular flu. So, we have excluded her for the 7 days - but we are asking her to bring a doctors note on return in order to excuse those absences. She is coming back Monday - I may call in sick!

She knows that I know she did not even take the kid to the Dr. and she just used this as yet another excuse. However, she will not produce a note and she will not go down without a huge scene!!!

No physician would hesitate to give school a excuse (especially during this time). Come on, I wasn't born yesterday!!

Ok - feel better - just needed to let out!!!

clarification - mom did not call school as I posted above. Mom told the attendance office this when THEY called inquiring about the absences.

[Aneroo, LPN]

Maybe Mom needs the cops to come pay a visit and explain that she can get in trouble for letting her child essentially skip school for no good reason.

[cowgirlBSN]

Our school policy is that a student has up to 9 days of absences for each semester. After that 9th day they are required to have a doctors note each and every time they miss. Whether it is a hurt toe, stomachache, etc. This does aggrivate a lot of parents and have had many chew us out! I've had to send home students who were over their days because of vomiting, fever, etc and they get really mad when I send them home and they are still required to get a doctors slip. So, I said all that to say this. After that 9th day and no doctor's excuse they are given 0's in all their classes for that day they missed.

[SchoolNurseBSN]

Myself and my colleagues in the attendance office already have copies of district policy (including policy specific to H1N1) in hand. We are going to give her the papers stating said policy and tell her we will not discuss it any further!

It is annoying that someone would try to manipulate the system during this time. Especially when we are working hard on influenza surveillance and trying to give the local health department an idea of how severe and widespread this situation is.

[Keepstanding, ASN, RN]

my school system would have taken her to court.....like.....yesterday ! no one should put up with this kind of "meconium" !!

[LovingOBFutureFNP]

I'm two weeks away from wrapping up my school nurse gig to return to my true nursing love, obstetrics, but since I'm a school nurse for 2 more weeks...

I like to drop words like "truancy officer" and "court" and "big fine" to parents whose students are absent on a regular basis, and all of a sudden students seem to be in school more! I think you did the right thing with requiring a doctor's note to return to school in order to excuse the absences. This reminds me of my student who had missed over a week of school and came back with a handwritten note from mom saying she'd been out with measles. She'd received both doses of MMR and had not gone to a doctor. Like you said, no doctor would hesitate to write an excuse for any student with N1H1 - or regular flu, strep throat, etc. for that matter!

One of my pregnant students missed 14 days of school within 2 months because "my doctor says I'm very delicate right now since I'm pregnant and that he can't believe I'm attending a public school!" I made it very clear that because of the excessive absences, no more absences would be excused for the semester without a note from a physician. Have to draw the line somewhere!