It’s just about that time of year again. Time for back-to-school clothes. For new notebooks and folders and freshly-sharpened pencils. For lunch money jangling in pockets or plastic-wrapped sandwiches brought from home.
And it’s time for head lice. The tiny insects made KidsHealth.org’s list of the top five conditions that are likely to keep a kid home from school during the coming school year. Others include pinkeye, strep throat, pneumonia and a skin rash with a name out of the Harry Potter series.
Several of those are common in Elgin School District U46, Director of Health Services Debbie Miller confirmed. Others aren’t, she said. And head lice is no reason to keep kids home from school any more, she said.
“It’s really considered more of a nuisance problem today,” Miller said. “I don’t really think of it as much of a contagious disease children are likely to acquire at school. They’re more likely to acquire them somewhere else. They don’t fly. They don’t jump. They literally have to crawl from head to head.”
That requires close contact — much closer than sitting next to a classmate at school, Miller said. Head lice, common among children ages 3 to 12, also can spread from sharing combs and brushes and hats, according to KidsHealth.org.
They cause no harm, do not spread disease and can be treated effectively, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines posted on the U46 Health Services website. They also are no reason for a healthy child to miss school, according to the guidelines, which encourage school districts to abandon “no-nit policies for return to school.”Miller said she also was surprised walking pneumonia and molluscum contagiosum made the list.
Molluscum contagiosum is a skin rash common among kids 1 to 12 years old that can spread through skin-to-skin contact or touching objects such as toys, clothing or bedding with the virus on them.
If a student has an unexplained rash, a school nurse will send him or her home, Miller said. But gastrointestinal infections that cause vomiting and diarrhea are much more common than rashes or pneumonia, she said.
Pinkeye came in No. 1 on the KidsHealth.org list and strep throat, No. 2. Both of those infections are very common in U46 as well, according to the health services director.
Spreading most of those infections can be prevented by students washing their hands frequently with soap and water, according to KidsHealth.org. That’s something U46 pushes through posters and hand-sanitizer dispensers all over its schools, Miller said.
And the Elgin school district directs parents to keep a student home from school if he or she has a temperature of 100 degrees or higher, has vomited or had diarrhea in the past 24 hours or has an earache or rash that has not been seen by a doctor. A student also should stay home if his or her eyes appear red or are crusted or draining, symptoms of pinkeye.
A student can return to school after he or she has been fever-free without the use of medications or has not vomited or had diarrhea for 24 hours. He or she also can return once a rash is gone or is determined to be non-contagious by a doctor or his or her eyes are clear and without drainage.