Teachers won't send kids to the nurse when ill?? - Page 2

[bobandjess99]

this is timely for me, as dd just got sent home today, same situation. It was REALLY hard to wake her up this mirning, but she had been up late yesterday because grandma is visiting..she played hard! I actually checked her for a fever, nope, fine. She had a tiny bit of runny nose, but she gets that 80% of the time from allergies. We get ready and drive to school (15 minute drive) and when we are 1 block from the school, she says "I dont think i should go to school today, my tummy hurts"
But - she seemed fine. And she had been asking to stay home so she could have more time to play with gramma. No fever. No cough. (and she usually DOEs run fevers and cough when sick).
So i told her to try to go to school, and to tell her teacher if she still felt sick. I went to work. 1.5 hours later, dh came up to my work to switch cars with me (he had been at home today, but had no carseats in his car) so he could go get her. Hr upset tummy had continued, and apparently was a sign of diarrhea that started at school.
i had no clue. She didn't have any diarrhea in the morning, she just went pee. No fever, no cough ,and a runny nose she has 80% of all the time.

I made the wrong call. It happens.
I would defniitely at least talk to the teacher about it. Probably mention what you said - that you recognize the difficulty because some kids will try to take advantage, but you children have no history of crying wolf, and need to be takn seriously in these instances.

[ecoteat]

I'm a teacher, and it is hard to judge when a kid REALLY needs the nurse sometimes. When in doubt, I usually send them, but most of the time if a kid asks to see the nurse it isn't really needed.

Momily, I think your comment was a little harsh. Of course those of us who work with so many kids worry about the germs they spread, but that's part of our job. So we wash our hands frequently, make sure we eat and sleep well, and hope for the best. Hopefully, our students and their families are doing the same.

[Tigerchild]

When I hear someone say, "My kid wasn't 100 percent," I take it to mean that the kid isn't 100 percent of their usual *school-going* self. Everyone has a bad day, but if you notice something off enough that you half-expect them to come home or be able to come home immediately just in case, then I think that it's probably wise to keep them home. Unless you are pretty sure the cause is not illness, but a late night, very upsetting event, ect.

If you know something is off, and you suspect illness, and we all know that generally people are contagious especially right before they show major signs of illness, I guess I don't understand why if you had the option you would not keep them home.

And yeah, it's part of the teacher's job to wash hands, ect...but the teacher and the ill student are not the only two people in the classroom.

I too would be annoyed if my child was really ill and was denied the nurse because the teacher thought they were faking. But I would also understand other families' annoyance that even though I knew something was up, I still sent my kid to school anyway at potentially their most contagious point. So when it comes to annoyance, I think there's plenty to go around.

The reality is though that many times people really don't have a choice, especially if they get no sick time or very limited amounts of it, where they cannot stay home just to be safest for everyone's benefit. Sometimes there just are no easy options.

[Redheaded_Momma]

Sending a note to the teacher or speaking directly with her is the best suggestion I would give in this situation.

As a school nurse, I frequently tell my ill students that are afebrile or that don't look ill that sometimes you have to try to make it thru the day when you are not feeling your best.

I would speak to the teacher about this specific situation.

[ChinaDoll]

Are you sure there is a nurse? In my Mom's district, there's one nurse for the ENTIRE district; she's not at any given school very often.

[mommy2maya]

Our school district right now is much more worried about spread of illness, and if you are sick, STAY HOME, who cares about absences. We have had over 100 kids out daily for the past two weeks, in a school of 600 students. Most kids are missing a complete week at a time. And if they come back and aren't 100%, they are sent back home. My son was out sick early last week, went back thursday, with no fever, no lingering illness and somehow spiked a fever within 10 minutes of being at school. It was 915 when I went back to get him, they start at 850.

[SunshineJ]

Originally Posted by Tigerchild

If you know something is off, and you suspect illness, and we all know that generally people are contagious especially right before they show major signs of illness, I guess I don't understand why if you had the option you would not keep them home.

Ok since this seems to be getting missed alot, I'm going to say it again. I'm referring to NON-CONTAGIOUS illnesses, such as allergies, allergy-induced conditions, etc. NOT SOMETHING THAT IS CONTAGIOUS, but that still the child may not feel great with. If *I* stayed home every day I didn't feel 100% I can honestly say I would go to work for less than a month each year; welcome to the world of allergies. DS gets allergy induced bronchitis. He is NOT CONTAGIOUS during any time of that illness. Certainly if one of my children showed signs of a *contagious* illness I would not be sending them to school, and in fact that's one of the things that annoys the heck out of me when people do.


We spoke with the kindy teacher about her personal policy. She said that if the child doesn't present any obvious symptoms like fever, vomiting, etc., she'll have them wait for about 20 min. She'll either ask again or if they're playing normally at that point she'll see if they ask again. If after 20 min they still want to go, she generally sends them. Not perfect but I'm ok with that (although she was very interested to know DD can spike a high fever and go into seizures at the drop of a hat if she does actually get sick!). DS's teacher we didn't get a chance to address it with as there were other concerns in an already too-short conference. We have sent notes, spoken directly with the teachers, etc. to no avail. I guess if we have any concerns in the future we'll either keep them home if possible (and risk "intervention" for missing classes) or we'll visit midway and see if they need to leave. This is one thing I didn't really think I'd have to worry about with public school!