Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Second grade at Chesterbrook by any chance???
It is happening there too? Sorry you are having to deal with that.
My question really was how can we do things differently in schools and I was hoping to hear from someone that might have had the issue successfully addressed at their school before trying to reinvent the wheel. We do not get notices every time it happens and maybe that is the first step. It is traumatizing for a child to have bugs in their head... it would be nice to save that from happening again without having to braid her hair every day for the rest of the school year.
Maybe three or four outbreaks is normal and I should not be concerned but we are at a rather small school with less than 500 students and after having only one lice outbreak in all of her years to having three this year it seemed alarming.
Lice DO NOT jump! Lice CRAWL from one head to another during head to head contact.
Honestly, while the AAP says it's not necessary to exclude children who have nits (eggs) but not live lice, I think it should be STANDARD that exclusion happens until all nits are gone in a child's head. Why? nits are eggs. they will hatch. When they hatch, the lice will eat and jump from head to head - that's their whole mission in life. And then they will try to mate and lay eggs on that new head. So if a few nits hatch during school they will jump to someone else's head. And so it goes.
BUT - parents will be up in arms because they don't want exclusion with nits - although honestly, if you comb and comb and comb correctly, you can remove all the nits (after you've killed the live lice with the medicated shampoo stuff (hair sectioned, only comb a small part, then move on - use the metal lice comb, do it in good natural light, do the child's entire head, do every single night (or morning) for days and days.)
Communicating that nits/lice were found is the first line of defense so you can immediately wash hair and then start combing, even if you don't see them.
having a "no nit" policy is second line of defense