Nurse/Health Services

A parent’s decision to keep a child home from school when he or she is sick can sometimes be a difficult one. Keeping a sick child home helps decrease the spread of disease to others while preventing your child from acquiring any other illness while his or her resistance is low. Please use the following guidelines to help determine when your child should remain at home.

Note: Avoid the use of aspirin with adolescents and young children since its use has been linked to Reyes Syndrome (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/reyes-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20377255)

A skin rash consisting of small blisters, which leaves scabs. Your child should remain home until fever-free and blisters have scabbed over, usually 5-7 days after the appearance of the first crop of blisters.

Irritated throat, watery discharge from the nose and eyes, coughing, sneezing, fatigue, and general body discomfort. Your child should remain home if symptoms are serious enough to interfere with your child’s ability to learn. Medical care should be obtained if symptoms persist beyond 7-10 days or if a fever develops.

Severe coughing that makes breathing difficult, results in a whooping/barking sound, or causes a child to turn blue or red in the face should be evaluated by a physician. Student may return to school when severity ceases, and antibiotic treatment (if prescribed) is completed. A student may attend school with a mild cough and no fever or other symptoms of illness.

Fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, body aches, headache, sore throat, congestion, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea, and new loss of taste or smell.  Individuals showing these symptoms may return to school after being fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication and when their symptoms have improved.

Reference the CDC for more information.

If your child has only one episode of diarrhea (loose stools), he or she may attend school if no other signs or symptoms of illness are present or no danger of dehydration are involved.

If your child’s temperature is 100◦ Fahrenheit or greater he or she should remain home until fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications.

Fever, coughing and/or sore throat, headaches and/or body aches, chills, fatigue, and sometimes gastrointestinal issues. Your child should remain home from school until symptoms are gone and the child is fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medicine.

For more information about the flu, click here. 

Lice are small, grayish-tan wingless insects that lay eggs called nits. Nits are firmly attached to the hair shaft, close to the scalp. Nits (small white dots) are much easier to see and detect than lice and are usually found at the nape of the neck and behind the ears. Your child may return to school after use of a treatment shampoo, all nits have been removed, and the school nurse clears the child to return to class.

Red, swelling, burning, and itching of eyes usually associated with some discharge and crusting around eye(s). Your child should remain home from school until receiving 24 hours of antibiotic therapy and discharge from the eye(s) has stopped. Consult your primary care physician to confirm diagnosis.

Slowly spreading, flat, scaly, ring-shaped lesions on the skin. Margins may be reddish and slightly raised. Child may return to school after treatment has begun and the rash area is covered.

A physician should evaluate skin rashes of unknown origin before a child is sent to school.

A severe sore throat may be indicative of other illness, particularly if accompanied by a fever. It is best to consult a pediatrician before sending your child to school for a severe sore throat. If a sore throat is minor, there is usually not a problem.

Strep throat usually produces a sore and red throat, possibly pus spots on the back of the throat, and tender, swollen glands in the neck. Scarlet fever usually produces symptoms of strep throat as well as a strawberry appearance of the tongue and rash of the skin. High fever, nausea, and vomiting may also occur. Your child should remain home from school until he/she receives 24 hours of antibiotic therapy, is fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication, and vomiting subsides.

Stomach ache, cramping, possibly fever, headache, and body aches. If your child has only one episode of vomiting and shows no other symptoms of illness, and is in no danger of becoming dehydrated, he or she may attend school after 24 hours.