The school nurse is located in the administration office and is available during student school hours. Her responsibilities include helping to control contagious illness in the school, developing and executing plans so that students with special healthcare needs can be safe and ready to learn, providing care for students with illness and injury and responding to medical emergencies.  She follows doctors’ orders to administer daily medications and those medications needed to control or prevent an emergency.  No medication may be given at school without the appropriate forms completed and signed by the child’s attending physician. 

Students CANNOT bring or administer any medication to themselves or others on school grounds. Students that bring medications (over the counter or prescription drugs) to school could face disciplinary actions at the 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 you 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. 

Students who have live lice will be sent home at the time of discovery.  The parents will be called and the school nurse will send home a 14-day treatment calendar and fact sheet. If nits are found but no live lice, students can remain at school until the end of the day. The school nurse will contact the parent to discuss treatment and send home a 14-day treatment calendar and fact sheet.

Children who have lice or nits may return to school after proof of treatment and rechecked by the school nurse or designee upon arrival to school. This is a Cabarrus County Schools Policy.  Students must be accompanied by his/her parent for recheck and should not use school transportation until cleared of live lice by the school nurse.

 If siblings of students with live lice or nits are in the school district, they will be checked by the school nurse or designee.  If 3 or more cases of live lice are found within a classroom, the class will be checked by the teacher/assistant or school nurse and a letter will be sent home informing parents of children in that classroom about the situation.