Health Services

Please use the information presented here to help you stay healthy and safe throughout the year. Check for updates and new links often, and please e-mail the school nurses if you have questions.

Illness

This is the time of the year when many viruses and germs are prevalent. Keeping your ill child at home is an important way to limit the spread of germs at school. Sometimes knowing when to keep your child at home is a difficult decision for parents. Unnecessary absences interfere with learning, time off from work can be a problem and childcare issues can be inconvenient, however, little learning takes place for the child when sent to school sick. Illnesses can be spread quickly in a classroom; classmates and staff are at risk for illness when a sick child is sent to school.

Here are some guidelines that are meant to be helpful when making the decision about sending your child to school:

Children must be fever-free for 24 hours without medication before returning to school, (Fever is defined as 100.5F or higher)
Children awaiting results from a throat culture must remain at home until a negative result is known or
Children with a positive strep culture must be treated with prescribed antibiotics for 24 hours before returning to school
Children that have been vomiting or have had diarrhea must remain home until the vomiting or diarrhea has stopped for 24 hours
Children recovering from an illness who are still too ill to participate in typical school activities, such as gym or recess, should remain home until able to resume school activities or may return to school with a physician’s note indicating activity limitations – if applicable.

Please do not send your child to school if your child:

Complains of a severe headache
Has a fever of 100.5 or higher
Vomits during the evening or night and still doesn’t feel well in the morning
Has thick yellow or green nasal discharge
Has inflamed eyes or thick, sticky yellow or white eye drainage
Has any skin rash unless it has been diagnosed by a physician as non-infectious

Any student with a temperature of 100.5 degrees or more may not attend school. If a student is sent home from school with a fever, he/she may not return to school until they are fever-free without medication for 24 hours.

State law requires that students be excluded from school if they are suspected of having a communicable disease.

In the event of illness or accident during the school day, the student will be referred to the school nurse. At the time of registration and at the beginning of each school year, the parent/guardian is requested to fill out The Annual Health Update in Sapphire. The parent/guardian is required to furnish the school with at least one telephone number where the parent/guardian can be contacted during the school day. If a child becomes sick during the day, the school nurse will evaluate the student and may need additional information or assistance.

Parents/guardians must make arrangements to have either a parent, relative or neighbor available at all times to pick up a child who is ill.

We cannot keep an ill child in school. Please do not send your child to school when ill. This request is made to:

Protect the student because he/she is more susceptible to secondary illness
Protect other students from possible communicable disease

Medication

Prescription medication may be administered only at the written request of the child’s physician.
Medications MUST BE in the original prescription bottle and kept by the school nurse.
There must be written permission from the parent/guardian for the medication to be administered at school. It must be brought in to the nurse in the original container by the parent/guardian.
NO medications in envelopes, foil, or baggies will be accepted. Medication must be transported to and from school by an adult.
Children will not be allowed to carry medications.
Inhalers that are prescribed to be carried by a student must be accompanied by a physician’s note indicating the competency of self-administration by the student as well as the order for the student to carry their inhaler with them.
All inhaler use must be documented by the nurse.

The Medication Order and Request must be completed and provided to the school nurse in order for a student to receive medication at school.