Have you ever found lice in your kids' hair and NOT reported it to the school?

[Anonymous]

Public schools don’t share lice info. They don’t even tell you there is lice in your class or in your grade. So there is no point in sharing honestly.

I tell families at back to school night that I’m not allowed to tell them if the class has lice so they should just assume at all times that it does and behave accordingly. Coats in backpacks, hair puller back, periodic checks. I also don’t have any bean bags or anything like that in my room.

[Anonymous]

When my kids were little (lice infestation is more common in ES) I was combing their hair every day during bath time with a special lice comb that I got from my country of origin. My kids never got lice.

[Anonymous]

It would be amazing if the “room mom” and/or PTA organized and volunteered for lice checks. Far more beneficial than a much of the other work they create

[Anonymous]

It wouldn't have occurred to me. We've never gotten any mass communication from the school about lice, only direct outreach if a kid was noticed to have it at school or word through the grapevine from other parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be amazing if the “room mom” and/or PTA organized and volunteered for lice checks. Far more beneficial than a much of the other work they create

The school would never allow this. Outsiders can’t know who has lice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It wouldn't have occurred to me. We've never gotten any mass communication from the school about lice, only direct outreach if a kid was noticed to have it at school or word through the grapevine from other parents.

Schools no longer notify and haven’t in a long time. Kids with lice don’t get sent home either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school does not notify parents even if you report a case. The issue then tends to escalate until parents get fed up and out themselves to the school-wide WhatsApp group. By then dozens of people chime in.

Our school is like this but I think they are handcuffed by district policy. It's a liability issue -- they are afraid to do anything that could be viewed as disclosing private health info, even in an attenuated way. And they don't want to do anything that could be viewed as causing or contributing to a child or family being bullied, ostracized, or otherwise impacted. Because lice has no negative health outcomes other than just being very, very annoying, it is harder for them to justify actions as being central to public health -- most districts do not treat lice as a public health concern.

This is why I think there needs to be an anonymous reporting system that alerts families of any report. Then you totally relieve families of any trepidation they might feel in reporting that they have a case but still give other families a chance. I think most of the time people are just embarrassed.

Just another piece of evidence of the degradation of public schools. I remember our elementary school principal personally coming into our class at least a couple times per year (or another employee at times) checking us for lice. If you had lice, you either had to have a doctor note it was cleared or be checked by school again. But someone deemed that was deemed that discriminatory and unnecessarily kept kids out of school

This isn't about "the degredation" schools. Pediatricians generally don't want you coming in for lice unless you've treated with OTC treatments for a while and it's not working. Even then, you're better off calling a lice lady or going to a "lice salon" because not combing is the best treatment. The most a doctor can give you is a script for one of the shampoos that is supposed to kill both lice and nits, but frankly I don't trust them. You need to nit comb and do a smothering treatment every 7 days for three weeks to make sure you completely kill the life cycle.

The old policy of sending kids home and letting them come back in a day or two with a doctor's note would not work now. It takes longer than that to guarantee a kid is nit free (even the lice salons usually tell you to come back for additional treatment in 7-10 days because they can't guarantee they'll get every last not the first time, even though they are pros at it). Plus lice today are largely immune to the lice shampoos.

The current policy is better public health policy based on what we now understand about lice. It's not about equity.

The part where they don't tell families about lice outbreaks is about litigiousness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It wouldn't have occurred to me. We've never gotten any mass communication from the school about lice, only direct outreach if a kid was noticed to have it at school or word through the grapevine from other parents.

Same here. Never notified the school or received any notification. I definitely texted the parents the one time I found lice after a friend's birthday party so the parents could check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s important to report so everybody can check. If you don’t tell, it’s going to get passed around some more and you’ll end up with it again, and again. It has to be a mass effort.

I would have thought everyone could figure why they would notify parents. Mine have never had it but my sister’s kids did. She said there are a lot of Indians in her town who are very nonchalant about lice. They said it was common for them growing up so it didn’t bother them.

[Anonymous]

The parents in our class chat notify each other. I’m sure not all do, but I appreciate it so I can double check my kid. I think once we got a note from the school about “multiple cases”.

[Anonymous]

Man, I’m glad my kids school isn’t like this! DCPS. There was a case of lice in my kid’s class last year. They sent a message to all parents and then the nurse was in the class every single morning for over a week checking every single head. If you had lice, parents were called and told to take you home and treat. My daughter never got it (thank god, I’m afraid of bugs) but I always braid her hair in the morning and for over a week it was clear that it had been redone each day - the nurse was taking her hair down and checking, and someone was rebraiding it (maybe the teacher? Not sure).

I was so grateful they were so thorough. Especially after that experience, I would always tell!

I could see how you wouldn’t if you knew the school wouldn’t do anything.

Maybe DC elementary schools are better about this because they also have PKs and they have blankets for taking naps? It’d be so easy for lice to just run rampant if they weren’t diligent.

[Anonymous]

Ewww - endless posts about not wearing shoes in the house but yall are sending your kids to school with lice. So nasty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No what’s wrong with you??

OP here. Nothing -- we always tell the school. But it's obvious some families don't and I'm trying to understand why.

Because it doesn’t matter. The schools don’t do anything with that information. They aren’t checking or rechecking kids, they aren’t notifying others in the class. Lice is now considered a nuisance, not a disease.

That's because that's all it is. Annoying but not harmful. Lice do not spread disease.

[Anonymous]

My child got lice at school and it traumatized me, it was so gross. I treated it with powerful shampoo, did nothing. I smothered it with conditioner, still came back; flat ironed every strand of hair and combed with a nit comb, still returned. Finally I figured out though research how to permanently rid her of lice and now her hair is in tight braids every day. The lice today are called super-lice for a reason, and they are basically endemic at this point, so parents should laser focus on prevention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child got lice at school and it traumatized me, it was so gross. I treated it with powerful shampoo, did nothing. I smothered it with conditioner, still came back; flat ironed every strand of hair and combed with a nit comb, still returned. Finally I figured out though research how to permanently rid her of lice and now her hair is in tight braids every day. The lice today are called super-lice for a reason, and they are basically endemic at this point, so parents should laser focus on prevention.

What did you do that finally worked? This is my nightmare TBH.