NCHS District 18 Illness Protocol: Should Your Student Stay Home? | Posted 8/18/23
Here are a few guidelines to help you determine whether your student is too ill to go to school.
Fever
- The student should stay home if they have a temperature at or above 100.4 degrees F. They may return to school when they are fever-free without use of fever-reducing medications for 24 hours.
Communicable Disease (contagious illness)
- The student should stay home from school if they have a contagious disease. A contagious disease is one that is spread by close contact with an infected person or object. This includes: chicken pox, influenza, vomiting, diarrhea, strep throat, “pink eye” with yellow or green drainage. Some illnesses may be contagious before symptoms appear. It is difficult to prevent the spread of germs in the community setting. Frequent hand washing is the best way to prevent the spread of disease.
- If the student has chicken pox or strep throat, ask your doctor when the student may return to school. Generally, a person with active chicken pox infection should not return to school until all the lesions are dried and crusted. A person with strep throat should be on antibiotics for 24 hours and be fever free before returning to school.
Your Student is TOO ILL to go to school if any of these signs/symptoms are present:
- Vomiting and/or diarrhea, unless these are determined to be due to a non-communicable condition and the student is not in danger of dehydration and feels well enough to participate in school. Please keep your student home for 24 hours from last episode of vomiting.
- Wheezing or consistently short of breath.
- Cough that disrupts sleep and/or normal activity.
- Copious amount of Eye Drainage that is yellow or green. If the doctor has given antibiotics, the child may return to school after 24 hours of treatment or according to the doctor’s note.
- Rash that is rapidly spreading or accompanied by fever or has open, weeping lesions. Rash without fever with no other symptoms usually does not require the student to stay home.
Your Student MAY ATTEND school even if these signs/symptoms are present:
- Mild stuffy nose, sneezing, or a mild cough without fever. Reinforce the importance of frequent hand washing and covering your sneeze/cough.
- 1 or 2 episodes of diarrhea without vomiting, abdominal pain or fever.