Kink in Federal Law Is Prompting Schools To Stop Picking Nits [lice & no child left behind]

Wall Street Journal ^ | 6/1/06 | ROBERT TOMSHO

[I still care]

Don't count on it. We have an active homeschool group, and lice have run through it a couple of times.

Homeschoolers tend to be hugely supportive of each other, take the kids on field trips together and coop and stuff.

Also lots of people here in FL send their children to church, even if they don't go.

Some churches send around buses to pick up kids in the neighborhood. Kids in our childrens church have occasionally passed them around.

[Western Phil]

" I never heard of head lice until my own kids started public school."

I think the hippie communes in the 60s did much to revitalize the louse population.

[redgolum]

I can tell you that the schools care zero about it and will not even send a letter home to parents to let them know lice has infested the school.

Unfortunately, that is because outraged parents threaten to sue. Something about hurting their self esteem.

[edcoil]

Actually it is a policy of our local school board and nurse.

They say that with such a small percentage of students have this issue at any one time, they don't feel the need to inform parents.

Our school has a zero policy - if you child gets lice and you tell the school, your child must go through a daily check by the nurse before entering the school and will not be admitted until 100% clean.

So, with so many working parents, they just don't tell anyone and send them off to school.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

As a young school teacher I worked way, way out in the backwoods of the Navajo Reservation. For a suburban, white, middleclass kid, it was a real eye opener. I learned how to deal with head and clothing lice, scabbies, trench mouth, assorted vermin, in short, the whole World War I gamut. Lots of stuff they didn't teach in Ed 101 at Macalester College.

I went back later and put old Dr. Derenfield's class in a state of wide eyed shock.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Follow the money.

The schools DON'T want kids out of the classroom BECAUSE the (fed and state) MONEY is based on classroom count.

Not classroom quality or classroom knowledge or classroom learning.

Ted Kennedy's "No Child Left Behind" is based on "number of people" ONLY.

Which, by the way, is why the teacher's unions HATE homeschooling. They don't money if the homeschooled kids (or private enrollment kids) aren't in the classroom.

[windcliff]

ping

[therut]

The problem is that once the head lice is treated the eggs are dead. Hard to get all out of the hair. Teachers still see eggs sends child back to my office. ONCE TREATED the eggs are as harmless as a flake of dandruff. And by the way nits are way smaller than a sesame seed. Putting mayo on the hair thick and then plastic and leaving it on overnight also kills the nits and lice.