School District to Notify Parents When Lice Is Found in Classrooms

Parents will continue to be notified when lice is found in their student's classroom, school officials announced at an informational meeting held Tuesday.

The Pleasanton Unified School District recently .

The changes, implemented by the district last month, caused concern with many parents. It also sparked parent Lisa Swartzendruber to start an online petition to get the guidelines changed back.

Lisa Swartzendruber wrote, via email:

"The district has decided that parents have a right to know when their children our being exposed to head lice.  They have agreed to change that part of the policy so letters will start to go home again.  They have also agreed to take another look at the following items:

• Shared items in the classrooms like pillows, blankets and the vests used during PE. 

• The new guidelines state that when live lice are found on an individual they will let the child stay in the classroom and notify parents at the end of the day. They will take another look at this part of the procedure."

The Pleasanton Unified School District's nurse, Carrie Stavropoulos, said the recently-changed lice guidelines will revert back so parents are sent a notice home when a case of head lice is found in the classroom.

"In response to parental concerns, PUSD announced at the start of the meeting that we would notify parents if a child in their child's class has a confirmed case of head lice," Stavropoulos said. "No other changes are planned at this time; however, we will be reviewing concerns expressed."

The petition by Lisa Swartzendruber can be found on Change.org.

The petition says:

Petitioning Parvin Ahmadi:

Pleasanton Unified School District: Go back to previous Head Lice Procedure.

Go back to previous Head Lice Procedure. That policy had a lot of good proactive points which included notifying parents when lice was found in their child's class room. This is important so parents can do extra self-check procedures and remind their children on things they should or should not be doing. The new procedure is completely reactive and will cause a larger infestation.

What do you think about the decision to send notices home about lice outbreaks in your child's classroom? Did you attend the meeting? Did you sign the petition? Tell us in the comments section below.