Despite another lengthy statement from a concerned parent asking for changes, the Randall School Board Wednesday asserted that it is sticking with its current policy on head lice.
Resident Valerie Lass read a statement that asked the board to institute three head checks for lice per school year.
But board President Bill Jones said such checks have not been done at the school for at least eight years and that there were no plans to start them now. (Lass says her children do remember having them.)
Jones said the current policy, which does not call for children to be sent home immediately upon detection of lice and allows them to return upon being able to show treatment is based on current expert opinions.
Lass presented a 300-signature petition asking for changes in the policy last month.
UPDATE — District administrator Steve Bloom issued this statement regarding head checks at the school in the past:
As a point of clarification, the District has not conducted full-scale building-wide checks for at least eight years. It has never been noted that classroom checks have not been conducted when determined to be appropriate and necessary. As warranted, this practice will continue if determined to be an effective way to manage an incidence of head lice in our school. Additionally, and as requested, letters home will be sent when a case is found in a classroom to the parents of children in that classroom and will be done following the October 1 letter sent to all District parents in both hard copy and via AlertNow.
The school board did listen to our statement and they actually had a little discussion about the comments made. Bill Jones did state that checks have not been done at the school for around 8 yrs. I would like to correct Mr. Jones that head checks have been done every year maybe not school wide checks but class head checks when a lice case had been found. I would like parents to have correct information.
As stated during the meeting, “building wide checks” have not been done for the past eight years. I never made any mention of class room room checks not being made. These checks are carried out when warranted, just as our policy states. This procedure will continue. This is why students do recall a head lice check during the past years.
Bill Jones plainly stated at the school board meeting ” I hate to break this to you but lice checks have not happened in about 8 yrs” So with that statement parents who are very informed needed clarification on class checks or whole school head checks. I was simply noting that class checks have been happening every year but building wide checks have not. The parents are simply asking that these class checks continue and to be proactive in the fight against lice. We know the board says when warranted but when will that actually be?
It’s nice to see the beginning of banter between board and parents. This would be most appreciated if it were carried over at meetings as well. The general feeling is that parents’ opinion, regarding their own children, is heavily disregarded; current case in point being the new lice policy. Such clarification might not be necessary if there were to be open and candid discussions prior to such impacting decisions. One would assume that since corrections are being made regarding policy on classroom checks, that the public might also then be given an answer to last night’s question, “Is policy being upheld, regarding checking to see that students have been treated, prior to heading back into the classroom?”, as current policy states.