HEALTH (NURSE/MEDICATION) - Nurse Regina Blackmon

To provide the best environment for your child’s learning experience and to protect the health of others, send your child to school feeling well. Should symptoms of any oncoming illness be displayed, keep your child home for observation. Call the school to indicate that your child will not be in school. 

Your child should stay home from school if he or she:

• Has a fever of 100.4 or higher

• Has been vomiting or has diarrhea

• Has a rash with fever

• Has symptoms that keep your child from participating in school such as:

  • Very tired, unable to focus in class or lack of appetite

  • Cough that he or she cannot control or sneezing often

  • Headache, body aches and/or earache

  • Bad sore throat with or without fever and swollen glands, unable to control pain or swallow liquids

  • Eye drainage – thick mucus or pus from the eye, uncontrollable itching

If your child contracts a contagious disease, please notify the school office, so that other children in that classroom can be observed more closely. Return your child to school only after all infectious and contagious symptoms have disappeared.

24 Hour Rule:

• Your child should be fever free without medication and no vomiting or diarrhea for at least 24 hours before returning to school.

• If your child was given an antibiotic, please keep them home for at least 24 hours after the first dose.

Returning to school:

• When your child returns to school, send a written note, signed by the parent/legal guardian indicating the days of the child’s absence and the reason for the absence. 

• When a child becomes ill at school, he/she is referred to the school nurse. The nurse will make the preliminary determination on whether the child needs to go home. When called, the parent should make arrangements immediately for the student to be taken home. 

• No medication can be given to a student without the written permission of the physician. This rule includes over the counter medication such as Advil, Benadryl, Pepto-Bismol, etc. A specific form must be completed by the physician, signed by the parent, and brought or faxed to the school. 

ADMINISTRATION OF MEDICATION DURING SCHOOL HOURS

If your child must have medication of any type during school hours, including over-the-counter drugs, you have the following choices:

1. You may come to school and give the medication to your child at the appropriate time(s).

2. You may obtain a copy of a medication form from the school secretary. Take the form to your child’s doctor and have him/her complete the form by listing the medication(s) needed, dosage, and number of times per day it is to be administered. This form must be completed by the physician for both prescription and over-the-counter drugs. 

3. You may discuss with your child’s doctor an alternative schedule for administering medication (e.g., outside of school hours.)

4. If your child is subject to unusual health hazards such as allergy to bee stings, and/or requires special medical intervention (e.g., asthma, diabetes, etc.), please notify the nurse.

5. The school does not assume responsibility for students who administer medication to themselves (self-medicate).

6. At the conclusion of a student’s treatment, the unused medication must be removed from the school by the parent.

School personnel will not administer any medication to students unless they have received a medication form properly completed and signed by the doctor, and the medication has been received in an appropriately labeled container. In fairness to those giving the medication and to protect the safety of your child, there will be no exception to this policy.

If you have any questions about this policy or other issues related to the administration of medication in the schools, please contact the principal.