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Too Sick For School?

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Is my child too sick to go to school?

The following tips are to help you decide if your child should be kept home from school: 

  • How does your child feel?
    • Variations from normal behavior are the best indicators of illness. You know your child best; trust your instincts.
  • Fever:  
    • If your child has a fever at night, he/she must not attend school the next morning. Temperatures are lower in the morning and a fever may occur again in the afternoon. You are required to wait 24 hours after the fever breaks, without the use of fever reducing medications such as Tylenol and Ibuprofen, before sending your child back to school.
  • Upset stomach:  
    • If your child vomits during the night, do not send him/her to school the next day. You are required to wait 24 hours after a child vomits before sending your child back to school.
  • Diarrhea:  
    • Loose and frequent stools have many causes. Do not send a child to school until bowel movements are normal.
  • Common Cold:  
    • Be sure a child knows how to handle tissues for coughing, sneezing and nose blowing, and practice good hand washing techniques. Your child may go to school as long as he/she does not have a fever or discomfort. If symptoms are severe (persistent cough or severe runny nose with thick mucous that will consistently interrupt their work or rest time), please keep your child at home so he/she may rest and recover.
  • Earache:  
    • Never ignore an earache. Contact your physician and keep your child at home.
  • Sore Throat (Could it Possibly be Strep?):  
    • A strep infection requires a doctor’s visit and medication. Strep can lead to a more serious illness if not properly treated. The child must be on medication at least 24 hours before returning to school.
  • Contagious Condition:  
    • Head lice (see below), scabies, impetigo, chicken pox, strep throat, measles, rubella, mumps, whooping cough, meningitis and some forms of conjunctivitis (pink eye) are contagious and must be properly treated and no longer contagious before your child may attend school. Please notify the school if your child has a contagious condition so that other parents can be alerted.
  • Head lice:  
    • Due to the arrangement of student work spaces in the Montessori classroom and the number of collaborative work spaces and projects, if we find signs of live lice, in order to contain the spread we will ask parents to pick up their student early to begin treatment. If parents detect lice at home, please let the School Nurse or teacher know.  The student may return to school after the first treatment application has been done.  Prior to the student returning to school, we will need to verify that treatment has begun.  A second application of the treatment, which typically needs to be applied 7-10 days after the first application, is necessary. Upon returning to school, after the first treatment and before the child enters the classroom, please bring her/him to the School Nurse or Office where he/she will be discreetly checked for live crawling lice.  Thorough combing with an egg removal comb each day during the 10-day period following the first treatment is an essential part of eliminating the lice and helping to prevent a lice recurrence.
  • Absence due to sickness: 
    • If your child has been out of school due to illness, we ask that you consider whether he/she is well enough to be outdoors before you send him/her back to school. The outdoors is part of our program and we do not have the staff to supervise students indoors and outdoors simultaneously.
  • Illness or Injury at School:    
    • If a child becomes ill at school, he/she will be taken to the Nurse's Office or Main Office area. A parent/guardian will be contacted and will be expected to pick up the child as soon as possible. If a child is receives a minor injury at school, first aid will be administered for this minor injury. If he/she has a more serious injury at school that requires medical attention an Injury Report will be completed and the parents will be notified immediately with more serious injuries that requires medical attention, parents will be asked to sign the Injury Report when they pick up their child.  The student’s emergency contacts will be called if the parents are unavailable and EMS may be called when necessary.