The dreaded topic...lice

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I have some parents freaking out about lice..more so about the spread of it. Their child's classroom has 3 cases of lice. I have checked the classmates twice this week, which is already above what my coworkers at other schools in my district do. We have a no nit policy and the kids that have been treated must be cleared by me the return day and every day after for a week.

The mom has been emailing the teacher and wants the class checked every day and notes sent home each day there is a new case. I sent home notification letters Monday and then the AAP handout about lice yesterday. The teacher also sent home her own letter about additional cases and tips/trick (Fairytales, hair up and sprayed, no hugging, etc).

Does anyone have any other helpful resources regarding lice?

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Specializes in Telemetry, Gastroenterology, School Nrs.

If you have done a full classroom check twice this week, plus sending all the information home to parents, I would say your work here is done. An everyday check is absurd and completely disrupting their class time. Parents can be encouraged to check their children at home over the course of the next 7-10 days, and really they should be doing that from time-to-time anyway. Do you have a policy on full classroom checks?

All you can do is continue to try and educate everyone on the day in the life of a head louse :) and how they are and are not transmitted, as well as some helpful hints on treating and preventing, which it sounds like you already doing.

We recently wiped out our no-nit policy, thankfully! Good luck and sorry you are in the middle of "little critter" drama. Makes for looooong days, I know.

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How about catching a live lice and putting it in a Ziploc bag? Pin it to your bulletin board. This will help prove how quickly lice die when off of a human head. Isn't that a super fantastic idea OldDude??!!

You have done over and above what you needed to do. Don't let those parents get you all worked up about it. You know waaay more than they or the teachers do. Parents taking responsibility is key.

Hang in there nyy2! :snowman:

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How about catching a live lice and putting it in a Ziploc bag? Pin it to your bulletin board. This will help prove how quickly lice die when off of a human head. Isn't that a super fantastic idea OldDude??!!

You are a genius! How come no one has though of this???

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Specializes in IMC, school nursing.

Two nurses have become rich off the public's hysteria (yeah!). You can send them to licehappens.com, a great info rich site. They have lots of product for sale as well as offering services, but they really do let parents know that combing and bagging bedding for 2 days is really all that is necessary.

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.

All excellent advise. I will add, unless you have written permission from all the kid's parents in that classroom, STOP doing classroom head checks. Just because a kid in a class of 20 other kids has head lice doesn't give you a cause to put your hands on the heads of the other students in the class; especially looking for head lice. Heck, we don't check the temperature of every child in the class when one of them has a fever...or any other condition; why head lice? This is parent driven hysteria. Classroom head checks put you on a slippery slope. Just ask one of our district nurses who found herself at our Central Office sitting across the table from an attorney representing the family of a child this nurse had done a head check on during the course of a classroom lice head check. The case never went to court but it did compel our district to get on board with discontinuing classroom head checks. (I had stopped doing them years prior but there were still some nurses who caved to the pressure). There isn't a logical explanation for doing classroom head checks except for the stigma and hysteria associated with head lice. There - done. Rant over.

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i know. classroom lice checks do not make any sense. and if any other member of the school staff had to do it, it would cause an uproar!

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Thanks OldDude. :up:

It is amazing how much hysteria there is regarding lice. I started out my job as a school nurse with great advice from the previous one who told me to never do head checks for lice.

Of course, the education staff thought a new nurse would succumb to their calls to me to do head checks. I simply said no and gave the reasons you gave.

Some of the paraprofessionals now check for lice since I wouldn't do it. :no:

My replacement nurse was given the same advice by me - no head checks! But I don't know if she succumbed to the pressure or not.

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Specializes in School Nurse, Pediatrics, Surgical.

I had quite the lice issue 2 years ago about my school (not there this year). The parents got pretty upset and was getting together a group that would volunteer to help me with head checks because of 3 cases were reported! Sometimes that letters sent out cause more issues then there needs to me. I have started just adding information about head lice checks to the newsletter as a reminder that it should be done weekly if you have a school aged child.

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Hmm, I'm concerned now about the prospect of whole-class head checks (I've done one or two). I'm in an awkward position of being a long-term substitute (I won't be here past March), so I'm hesitant to try to make changes to policies or procedures that have been ongoing for years - I just don't think it will go over well.

I did find some good literature (http://www.pediatricnursing.net/ce/2016/article4005226235.pdf) on the subject, but I just don't think they'd take too kindly to my input, being that I'm only here for the short term. Thoughts?

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.
Hmm, I'm concerned now about the prospect of whole-class head checks (I've done one or two). I'm in an awkward position of being a long-term substitute (I won't be here past March), so I'm hesitant to try to make changes to policies or procedures that have been ongoing for years - I just don't think it will go over well.

I did find some good literature (http://www.pediatricnursing.net/ce/2016/article4005226235.pdf) on the subject, but I just don't think they'd take too kindly to my input, being that I'm only here for the short term. Thoughts?

I don't see what it would hurt to FYI this article to school administration.

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