Know when to keep your sick child home from school.

Posted on: Dec 7, 2023

To prevent the widespread of the flu in school, we recommend your child stay home from school if experiencing flu or cold symptoms.
Staying home and resting will help your child’s body fight flu/cold symptoms. Staying at home is also the best way to keep from spreading germs and getting other people sick.

When deciding whether or not to send your child to school, please consider the following guidelines.
Symptoms to consider keeping your child home:
1. Severe cold, cough or sore throat.
2. Eye infection, especially if discharge is present.
3. New skin rashes, especially if draining – unless a medical practitioner declares the rash is not contagious.
4. Temperature of 100 degrees or more with or without symptoms of a related illness or chills.
5. Nausea, vomiting, chills, diarrhea or abdominal pain.
6. Until the results of laboratory tests (i.e., throat culture, nasal swab, saliva test) are known.
7. If the child is unable to participate in routine activities or needs more care than can be provided by school staff.
8. If the child needs over-the-counter medication to attend an entire school day.

Children may return to school when:
1. They are well enough to participate in routine school activities.
2. They are free of all symptoms for 24 hours (especially vomiting, diarrhea and fever)
3. Their temperature remains normal (98.6 degrees) for 24 hours, without using fever-reducing medications.
4. They are on an antibiotic for at least 24 hours.

It is often difficult to decide whether it is really necessary to keep your child home. When in doubt, keep your child home. If your child becomes ill at school and the teacher or school nurse feels your child is too sick to benefit from school or is contagious, you will be called to take him/her home from school. Our goal is to provide a healthy environment for all children. When your child is absent due to an illness please call the attendance line and provide information on their symptoms because we track illness in the school. 

Tina Prior, District Nurse, Delano Public Schools