Lice Outbreak: Any regulations or suggestions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our kid is at Mundo Verde and there seems to be an ongoing lice outbreak in the school. Is this common city-wide? I'm not being alarmist- it never ends.

There is a continuous discussion from the parents when this arises on a parent listserve but that does not seem to stem the outbreak. Earlier, as one parent summarizes the schools response is that for them to get involved it was "deemed inappropriate, not cost effective, and some had concerns about stigmatizing"...

This can't be it. Really? Do schools no longer check each child in the classroom to identify the infested kids so they can get assistance?

Is there a city level health department that can be of some assistance?

Thanks all.

Do they share headphones at the school? If so, that's the most likely culprit.

This is how our elementary school ended up with a lice epidemic last year. It was limited to the older grades though. That is how they were able to trace it back to the headphones (the Ks and 1st didn't use the headphones).

This year, every student must have their own headphones, stored separately in a labeled zip lock baggie. So far, no outbreaks this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our JKLM we have teams of parents that check all kids after holiday breaks.

Last year there was a persistent outbreak in my child's K class and a team of 3 parents (I was one of them) worked with the school nurse to check every child in that class weekly for 5 weeks.

What a huge violation of children's privacy!

JKLM parent here. this is really silly. I have never been told the name of any child in my kids' classes who had lice. when a child has head lice, the principal sends a message to the parents of each child in the same class saying that there was an instance of head lice, check you kid and so on. kids with head lice are never identified. so I really do not see where is the violation of privacy.

frankly, I found that the parents at my kids' school act like responsible adults. nobody ostracizes anybody, and there is no stigma about head lice. parents recognize that it can happen to anybody, and it is not a sign of beign dirty or having any other issue. nobody is happy about getting head lice and nobody wants them, but not because of any stigma. it is simply a humongous pain in the a$$ (kid is sent home during the day so you have to leave work to pick kid up, everybody in the family must be checked, hair washed and combed, washing all sheets in all beds, vacuum sofas and so on - for two parents working full time it is a nightmare). the only time a child was identified in my kid's class, it was because her mother sent a detailed e-mail to each parent in the class, saying that her child her head lice, and detailing the treatment and what she and her husband were doing to get rid of them. she did that because she had an older child that the year before had gone through a bad outbreak, getting head lice multiple times because she kept getting them from classmates. her message was useful to people like us who did not have experience. all parents got to work and there was no outbreak, saving all of us a lot of grief. I am grateful to those parents to volunteered to check all the kids so any problem was spotted early.

head lice is not AIDS in the 80's. I find reasonable that a child is not identified to other parents, but I find normal that other parents are notifed when a case of head lice is found in a class, and great if parents volunteer to check all the kids.