Anonymous wrote:I was shocked the first time my kids got it. When I was a kid, the nurses came through the classroom inspecting all the kids with oversized Q-tips and if you were flagged as having lice, you got sent to the nurses office. Kiss the next 10 years of your social life goodbye. You would always be the kid with lice.nowadays, if you go to public school, your kid will get it at some point. I don’t think the stigma is as bad, because truly everyone gets it. Once it shows up, though, be vigilant. Lots of combing / washing / chemicals / hair drying. I was shocked when I realized that my kids’ classroom pretty much always had a lice outbreak, but knowledge is power and a little bit of vigilance kept things under control.

That's right folks, lice are exclusively a public school nuisance! If your kids were at private school, the lice would be kept away and also your kids would learn to love kale. Wallow in your shame.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the thing, and I’m public health; lice is considered a nuisance.

Evidence of nits, the white egg sacs should be treated as soon as possible but it’s not an emergency causing missed instructional time. Even for visible, active lice per the VA Dept of Education no longer recommends exclusion and or immediate dismissal.

A student may return same day after having one treatment of shampoo.

Gross. I’m sure the people at the VA Department of Education would be completely fine with a colleague with an active infestation sitting right next to them for the entire day, scratching their head repeatedly.

They do t willingly leave heads to go in search of a new one. They usually only transfer from head to head/hair to hair contact. Occasionally one will end up on a hat or coat or backpack (usually still atta he’d to a piece of hair that came out) but it really is mostly hair to hair contact. And while it is a pain in the ass to comb out, it is not dangerous to your health. That is why they do not exclude kids from school anymore.

Again, gross. No adult would tolerate this in their workplace. These types of policies, where parents can’t even be instructed to remove live bugs from their children’s hair before sending the kids back to school, are one of the many reasons why teachers are leaving and never looking backs.

Here is the AAP advice site for lice for parents— they just in October reiterated that no nit policies don’t work well and do more than good.

For us combing is what worked, although we also tried cetaphil and maybe that helped too.

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/from-insects-animals/Pages/Signs-of-Lice.aspx?_gl=1*16flim3*_ga*MTYyMDI3NTU5OC4xNjY3NDA5MDUy*_ga_FD9D3XZVQQ*MTY2NzQwOTA1Mi4xLjAuMTY2NzQwOTA1Mi4wLjAuMA..&_ga=2.119993039.659458215.1667409053-1620275598.1667409052

This is AAP’s recommended approach. Lice are a lot less “contagious” than many people think and sending kids home usually isn’t warranted.

If your kid with medium to long hair is in a lice-prone classroom, it helps to school with their hair up until the lice situation improves. After an especially bad lice experience, I sent my daughters to school in all sorts of buns and braids for a long time, even though it meant waking up 20 minutes earlier. We also used a preventive spray-in conditioner.

Anonymous wrote:Add tea tree oil to your shampoo as a preventative.

+1 After DD got it twice, we switched to using this lice repelling shampoo and didn't get it again
https://www.amazon.com/Fairy-Tales-Rosemary-Conditioner-Prevention/dp/B00J8OU8QK

Add tea tree oil to your shampoo as a preventative.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know about post covid but pre covid every single ES had it all the time. You couldn’t send kids home.
The reason is that nix stopped working 20 years ago but no one changed the notices that go home. The life evolved. They laugh at nix. You need to get the terminator comb on Amazon and do a careful comb through (wipe each stroke on a clean white t shirt) every night for a week. Conditioner first to help the comb run through. That is the only thing that will break it. Every parent should do this and then the outbreaks would stop. But instead people use nix and it goes round and round.

Nix only stuns the large lice. And large lice can jump.

Years ago my child consistently had lice, days after treatment with nix. (Her home room was in a crowded trailer.)
Only way to properly treat it was oil and a nit comb.

This is the only OTC product that works. It used to be prescription only. Don’t bother with any of the other products.

https://www.cvs.com/shop/cvs-health-ivermectin-lotion-0-5-lice-treatment-4-oz-prodid-828577

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the thing, and I’m public health; lice is considered a nuisance.

Evidence of nits, the white egg sacs should be treated as soon as possible but it’s not an emergency causing missed instructional time. Even for visible, active lice per the VA Dept of Education no longer recommends exclusion and or immediate dismissal.

A student may return same day after having one treatment of shampoo.

Gross. I’m sure the people at the VA Department of Education would be completely fine with a colleague with an active infestation sitting right next to them for the entire day, scratching their head repeatedly.

They do t willingly leave heads to go in search of a new one. They usually only transfer from head to head/hair to hair contact. Occasionally one will end up on a hat or coat or backpack (usually still atta he’d to a piece of hair that came out) but it really is mostly hair to hair contact. And while it is a pain in the ass to comb out, it is not dangerous to your health. That is why they do not exclude kids from school anymore.

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the thing, and I’m public health; lice is considered a nuisance.

Evidence of nits, the white egg sacs should be treated as soon as possible but it’s not an emergency causing missed instructional time. Even for visible, active lice per the VA Dept of Education no longer recommends exclusion and or immediate dismissal.

A student may return same day after having one treatment of shampoo.

Gross. I’m sure the people at the VA Department of Education would be completely fine with a colleague with an active infestation sitting right next to them for the entire day, scratching their head repeatedly.

I don’t know about post covid but pre covid every single ES had it all the time. You couldn’t send kids home.
The reason is that nix stopped working 20 years ago but no one changed the notices that go home. The life evolved. They laugh at nix. You need to get the terminator comb on Amazon and do a careful comb through (wipe each stroke on a clean white t shirt) every night for a week. Conditioner first to help the comb run through. That is the only thing that will break it. Every parent should do this and then the outbreaks would stop. But instead people use nix and it goes round and round.

I was shocked the first time my kids got it. When I was a kid, the nurses came through the classroom inspecting all the kids with oversized Q-tips and if you were flagged as having lice, you got sent to the nurses office. Kiss the next 10 years of your social life goodbye. You would always be the kid with lice.nowadays, if you go to public school, your kid will get it at some point. I don’t think the stigma is as bad, because truly everyone gets it. Once it shows up, though, be vigilant. Lots of combing / washing / chemicals / hair drying. I was shocked when I realized that my kids’ classroom pretty much always had a lice outbreak, but knowledge is power and a little bit of vigilance kept things under control.

Here’s the thing, and I’m public health; lice is considered a nuisance.

Evidence of nits, the white egg sacs should be treated as soon as possible but it’s not an emergency causing missed instructional time. Even for visible, active lice per the VA Dept of Education no longer recommends exclusion and or immediate dismissal.

A student may return same day after having one treatment of shampoo.

Shocked to learn that APS does not require children with headlice to stay home. Huge outbreak at my DD’s school and apparently, they don’t require kids to go home or stay home to treat.