12
Head Lice in Schools Worry Parents
The parents of a Westgate Elementary student are frustrated, after she’s come home with head lice twice. They say the school needs to do more to inform other parents of lice cases, but the school district says it’s not as big of an issue as it seems.
“It’s traumatic for her,” said Cathy Sherman. “As soon as I said, ‘Yep, you’ve got it,’ she just busted into tears. It’s hard. Nobody wants bugs in their hair. I’d cry.”
Sherman checked her daughter for head lice when she heard rumors it was going around. The family spent hundreds decontaminating the house and buying special shampoos, only to have their daughter come home wtih it again.
They wish the school would be more up front when students come down with lice.
“It really doesn’t warrant alerting the whole school when you find an isolated case in the classroom,” said Lorraine Cooper, of the Kennewick School District, adding that isolated cases do not spread that easily.
“What’s the big deal about a notice saying, check your kids? It’s very frustrating, and it’s expensive,” said Sherman.
The school district says outbreaks are uncommon because kids generally don’t have close enough contact with each other to spread head lice. But they say if there are three more more cases in one class, they will send notes out to the parents of that class.
“We don’t send home letters when a student catches the flu, and there’s really a much greater chance of catching the flu than in transmitting lice from student to student in a classroom setting,” said Cooper.
“The flu is an obvious thing,” responded Sherman. “If your child has it, you know. LIce, people don’t necessarily know until they check.”
Stil, the district says they’ve only come down with a few scattered cases over the past year. Cooper called it a “very small program.”
Still, Sherman insists the school should let parents know when their children’s classmates have lice.
“If they don’t have it, great,” she said. “But if they do, it’s just going back and forth. They’re kids. They play, they touch each other’s hair, they pick up each other’s backpacks. They’re kids!”
The school district says there are things you can do to contain a lice outbreak. Look out for kids scratching their heads, and comb through their hair to look for eggs and lice. If they do have it, take them to the local clinc, and decontaminate your house. The whole family should go through the same cleansing procedure as the person who has lice, just to be safe.