School Nurse

If your child becomes ill at school and needs to go home, the Health Services Staff will contact a parent/guardian.  Children must call from the health office and not from their cell phones.  

If staff are unable to reach parents and determine that the student must go home, the emergency contacts will then be called.  It is important for parents to have the emergency contact list updated and that person is available during the day.   Your child will not be allowed to leave school with out contacting an adult.

When a student is sick, parents often wonder whether or not to keep a child at home from school.

If a child stays home and has the care he/she needs when first sick, he/she will often get better faster. Staying home and resting will help the body fight the sickness. 

Staying at home is also one of the best ways to keep others from becoming ill. It is often difficult to decide whether it is necessary to keep your child home. Below are some recommendations to guide decision-making regarding exclusion of ill children. The intent is to promote a healthy school environment by preventing exposure and spread of illness.
 
Reasons why children should stay at home:

• Severe colds, coughs, or sore throats
• Eye infections, especially when discharge is present
• New skin rashes, especially when draining— unless medical opinion states rash is not contagious
• Temperature of 100º or more with or without symptoms of illness
• Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or abdominal pain
• Any other sign of acute illness
• Until results of laboratory tests (i.e., throat culture, nasal swab) are known

 
Children may return to school when:

• Well enough to participate in normal school activities
• Free of all symptoms for 24 hours (no vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain)
• Temperature remains normal for a 24-hour period without the use of fever reducing medications.
• On an antibiotic for at least 24 hours
• Or your health care provider states your child can return to school

Anyone can get head lice. Head lice are most often transmitted through head to head contact. School transmission is rare. Some common symptoms of head lice include: itching and scratching of the scalp and neck, feeling that something is ‘crawling’ in the hair, sores from constant scratching, and seeing lice on scalp or nits attached to hair shaft. If your child has any of these symptoms, please check your child’s head for lice. Also, all household members and other close contacts of the person with lice should be checked.

Should your child be found to have live lice in their hair during the school day, a parent/guardian will be contacted by a health office staff member. The students may remain in school until the end of the school day and return to school after the first application of treatment has been completed per directions sent home with the student.

For more information on treatment go to:http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/lice/head/treatment.html

Provided by Olmsted County Public Health Service