'Excluded' for nits - is this acceptable?

[weblette]

Posting on behalf of a friend although ds3 has been 'affected' too.

Ds3's yr1 has a problem with nits - or parents not treating...
Goodness knows I know about it, despite combing all of my four every week, he always has a new adult or five on a Sunday night.

Friend was called by school on Thursday am - "she has nits, come and collect her" - told to take her home for the day. Friend had combed dd at the weekend, cleared a few so head was nitless but now had several large adults. Luckily she wasn't working so took dd home, wet combed, applied lotions, head nit-free. However her dd had to stay at home for the day.

Next morning, call from school - we've found a nit in her fringe, come and collect her again. Not withstanding the fact that adults don't just drop out of a child's head and she had no others, was any of this legal?

With 4 dcs I understand completely how utterly frustrating it is to have untreated nits in a year group. I've lost count of the the hours wasted tbh...

However to me it sounds so very dodgy on so many fronts - there is nothing on the school website about sending a child home if they have nits. How can they justify a child losing a day's education on that basis?

Friend is fuming and wants to know how best to approach the school about this. Please don't say 'check for nits more regularly', we all do atm...

sorry but I disagree.

I've known schools apply these policies and although the other children avoid the inconvenience of having nits. The same children end up being excluded time and again.

Assuming that a hard line will help those most affected, assumes that all children pick up nits at school.

I obviously had a different experience to you.Few people were excluded once let alone again and again as dealing with it properly meant it happened rarely.

It isn't just for the convenience of other people that headlice should be grounds for exclusion. Infections can develop from constant scratching with less than clean fingernails (it's like permanent chickenpox), students who are sitting in class with itchy heads are not concentrating on the lesson, sleep can be lost through itching, parents can get them too. Babies can also get them and it may or may not be safe to use toxic chemicals on them, or on mothers while pregnant or breastfeeding. There are natural remedies and I have heard of salons whose business is using natural lotions, etc. but they are costly. If you have a larger than average family the cost of nit treatment even with the normal otc stuff can really mount.

Maybe let schools treat the children. But then they may go home to stuffed animals and bedding that haven't been dealt with.

One approach might be to give more support to parents who seem unable to keep on top of things to make sure the children don't suffer because of incompetent parents, and not just suffer from nits. Parents who never seem able to keep on top of nits may also be doing a poor job of feeding and supervision. Nits may well be the only thing that hints at the chaos in their homes. The supportive approach should be teamed with exclusion however, because other people shouldn't be exposed.

But you wouldn't know who had been excluded because of nits since they would just be off 'sick'. In some instances everyone is absolutely right in that parents decide to take it more seriously. However for some of the most vulnerable this isn't the case.

Constant infestation is absolutely a warning sign for neglect and most schools I have worked in have worked hard to either help parents treat the problem or referred them onto other services because their are bigger issues at play.

However, I still cannot agree with a policy that would disadvantage some of the most vulnerable children for the convenience of others. No matter how it is sliced. Convenience.

However I don't see why someone can't develop spot on for children. Just like front line. Maybe that should be my next career move.

I've actually tried using frontline spot on

I wouldn't call it an inconvenience
It's cost us a lot of money we can ill afford, it's taken hours of my time as well as my children's meticulously going through their hair. Constantly washing bedding and towels has taken me far too much of my time not to mention the increase in our bills.
Dd finds it hard to concentrate when she's itching and the bites cause her sores that haven't healed by the time she gets the next lot.
I fucking hate the things. Even thinking about them makes me want to cry ( though that might be because I'm hormonal too)

Never found a single louse on anyones pillows or towels or even in the hairs in hair brushes and I have looked very carefully when I know I have been combing out all sizes of the little horrors.

Honestly there is no point in washing stuff. If there are any lice they'll most likely fall off on the way to the washer and be sucked up in the hoover.

Of course the DC will know, you can't send a perfectly well child home in the middle of the day without the whole village knowing by tea time.

Sending a note home at dismissal time asking they not come back next day would be much more tactful, and if they have been sitting in school in close proximity already, or if they've played outside before school with other DCs then they've probably spread them by the time anyone notices the infestation.

I'm really that people keep using the term 'excluded' over this. Mother was called and asked to take child home for treatment on the Thursday as she had nits. Parent was asked to do the same on the Friday as child still had nits. This is not an exclusion.
Child may have picked up the nits at school on Friday, she may have gone to school with it from bedding, sibling, parent, clothing at home still carrying nits. It's somewhat melodramatic to start stating this is damaging to the education of a child in year 1 because she has missed 1 1/2 school days to be deloused.
Yes it is 'inconvenient' for the parent - but sometimes having children is 'inconvenient.' Is the school/teacher really supposed to simply accept a lousy child in the classroom and do nothing? Knowing other children absolutely will be infected? Are they really supposed to leave the child with nits to simply get on with school with lice crawling around her hair and dropping off her? That, to me, would be far more unacceptable than calling the parent and asking them to care for their own child. If it isn't the mother's responsibility to sort this out for goodness sake then who does that responsibility belong to? Would other people really advocate simply allowing a child with lice to sit in class as normal day after day whilst the infestation spreads to other children? Really? Personally I find it quite unpleasant to sit and work next to kids in my classroom whilst I can see lice moving through their hair! I also see how physically and socially unpleasant it is for the child. Having the parent take them home and treat them is not unreasonable. And even if the child was simply reinfected at school the mother should be thankful the school was vigilant enough on her behalf to notice before she had an even bigger problem on her hands.

adopt you said it perfectly

This is the best case for head coverings I have ever seen. (do head coverings stop them?). We aren't religious but because some of her friends have them, DD has asked if she can have a head scarf... :)

Mother was called and asked to take child home for treatment on the Thursday as she had nits. Parent was asked to do the same on the Friday as child still had nits. This is not an exclusion.

According to the OP her friend wasn't asked to take her child home, she was told to do so. Like it or not that is an illegal exclusion.

There is nothing wrong with the school ringing the parent and requesting that they take their child home for treatment. It is not ok for them to demand that the parent do so as that is an illegal exclusion. It is also not ok to remove the child from class and keep them elsewhere on the premises as that is an illegal internal exclusion.

Isnt the ban on returning to school for 48hrs after sickness illegal as well then.

That depends whether it is justified on health grounds. If, for example, the child may still be infectious there is a reasonable justification. Nits, however, are not regarded as a serious health issue.

Being told to take a child home is exclusion. The child is being refused an education, therefore they are excluded. If a child is physically unwell or a threat to the health of others then they can be sent home. Nits are neither an illness to the child who has them nor a risk to other children. They are an unpleasant inconvenience.

Nobody is suggesting that it is ok for children to have nits, especially not persistently. However, some children get them continually. Some instances it is neglect, others it is poor management by parents, some because children are friendly souls and get re-infected often. None of these children deserve to have their education disrupted for something they have no control over.

If sending them home worked, the problem would have been solved long ago. Yes nits are more prevalent now but they weren't none existent years ago either.

So if they call you and tell you that your child is puking with a high fever and you have to take them home, are they excluding your child? Course not and no one would argue they were because they are ill. Lice may not be an illness but they are very unpleasant and infected children are not comfortable or focussed in school. They are also vulnerable to bullying - lice are frequently very easy to spot crawling around the scalp. It is ludicrous semantics to suggest the child was illegally excluded because the mother was asked or told to take her home and treat her lice properly and thoroughly. This was not an exclusion from what was described, or any inference put on the statements. And since no-one, not even the OP was actually privy to the wording of the phone call from the school it is a pointless debate as

As I have already said, if it is not the parent's responsibility to delouse the child, who does the responsibility belong to? And do you really, truly think the child - and her classmates and the teacher and the teaching assistant - were all better off if she were allowed to stay in school. It is extremely uncommon for lice to transfer without head to head contact. The OP says that the call was in the morning on the Friday. So unless she had already been hugging a classmate the most likely source of the louse is - like it or not - the family. Or she simply had not been deloused properly the day before.

For people to argue the semantics of whether is was an unofficial exclusion to say 'take your child home and sort out her lice' is absolutely bloody ridiculous. Children with lice need to be effectively treated, not simply wet combed and sent to school again with lice still populating their head. I've been flea bit, louse infected, puked on and made sick more times than I can count as a teacher. (I've also been punched, kicked and spat on by kids and sworn at by parents, but those are other stories). It does not seem unreasonable to me that the parent of an infected child take her home and sort out the problem intead of getting irritated that it is not convenient to leave work. It's not bloody convenient for me to get lice off your child, or see other children in the class get infected skin sores from scratching their scalps till they bleed because they are so itchy.

Adopt mama, the Department if Health advises wet combing as the best method. So that is not correct.

Then where the parents inclination to treat them? If one parent sees it as her or his right to leave her child infested knowing school are powerless to say and do anything then what's the point in people spending ££££ trying to treat their own kids. Because it won't make a bloody difference. Re infestations will permanently occur and people cannot afford to deal with that. Their laughing.

Yes they do advise wet combing but few people do so correctly,if you can't do so correctly then there is not much point to it.

They also DO advise lotions

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/childhealth6-15/Pages/Nits.aspx

being a bid pedantic aren't you onemorevoice. Even on the NHS website it does not say it is the 'best method'. Nor did I say it wasn't good - I said it is not enough to 'simply wet comb'. It is clear it needs to be done properly and clear it doesn't protect from reinfestation. I never said nor suggested that the department of health was 'incorrect' to advise wet combing and it is something of an immature response to post in this manner and a rather odd thing to focus on.

I've also said very clearly that the issue isn't really about whether the child was properly deloused or reinfected from a family member or a child at school. The issue is the false assertion the child was excluded and the indignation of the OP and others at the temerity of the school for putting the welfare of all the children above the convenience of the mother. To blithely suggest that an infected child should simply sit in class with lice because it is not an 'infectious illness' and it was inconvenient for the mother to take her home and properly deal with the issue is appalling.

Children who persistantly have nits are not going to be suddenly free of them because they are sent home once. They will be repeatedly sent home every few weeks for their entire school career. This is why the practise was stopped. All children have a right to an education no matter how much other parents might disagree with it.

Even if an exclusion policy is followed, those mostly vulnerable children who persistently have them, will still have them, they will be educationally disadvantaged but it's okay because a few other children won't get nits as often.

Lovely

How long does it take to thoroughly we comb a child?
Surely not more than an hour or so...no reason child has to be off all day.
If a child had persistent lice - as said up thread - it is neglect - that child has more problems than missing a few days of school -and another agency probably needs to step in.
I would have no problem with mine being 'excluded' for this - I would rather that than have them infecting anyone else...
Of course there is another alternative - having lice is no big deal - so lets all not bother treating them and we all can have lice all the time...

I have no problem with this policy. I hope all schools adopt it. We have thankfully never had nits in our house but if we had there is no way I would send my child to school until I knew they were clear.

Lightup believe me you would. If your DC ends up in a class where they bring nits home every other week, you really get to a point where you really don't care.

Yes, we had one main offender, but I suspect we had other parents who thought they had checked and hadn't.

Even DD2's fine hair took over an hour to be pretty sure it was clear. I 'd never ever bet money on there being no lice in DD2's mane or my own for that matter.

And that's the problem, we had tom boy basin cuts in the 70's, not 'bra' strap or longer hair which the girls plait, un-plait, put in a pony tail and then re-plait differently, before the end of morning assembly.