The common cold should have mild symptoms which may include stuffy nose, sneezing, and mild cough.

When to keep your child home: Child may attend school if he/she is able to participate in school activities.

When to keep your child home: Child may return to school 24 hours after treatment is started.

When to keep your child home: If the cough is persistent and irritating, it may be disruptive to learning.  Please keep your child home.

When to keep your child home: Child should be kept home for 24 hours after the last episode of diarrhea without the use of medicine.

Whooping Cough or Pertussis is a contagious bacterial disease that affects the respiratory tract. Pertussis can infect persons of all ages, but is most serious in infants and young children.

When to keep your child home: Anyone with pertussis should be isolated from school, work or similar activities until they have completed at least the first 5 days of an appropriate antibiotic therapy. The remaining doses of antibiotics need to be taken as prescribed.

When to keep your child home: Child should stay home if temperature is 100.4 degrees or more. Keep home until fever-free for 24 hours without the use of medicine.

Hand, foot, and mouth disease is a mild viral illness that can occur at any age, occurring most often in children under age 10. The disease is characterized by vesicles (small blisters which contain clear fluid) that occur inside the mouth, on the gums and on the side of the tongue. On rare occasions persons with the virus that causes hand, foot, and mouth disease may develop viral meningitis. Infants who develop oral vesicles may stop nursing and become dehydrated. Most cases of hand, foot, and mouth disease occur in summer and fall.

When to keep your child home: Students can come to school unless fever is present or child cannot maintain hygiene or avoid close contact with others.

More Information here

Norovirus (Stomach Flu)

Noroviruses (previously called Norwalk-like viruses or SRSVs) are a group of viruses that cause acute gastroenteritis in humans, often referred to as "stomach flu." However, norovirus is completely unrelated to influenza, a respiratory virus.

When to keep your child home: Child should be kept home until able to keep food down.

Pediculosis is an infestation of head lice, which infect the head and neck and attach their eggs to the base of the hair shaft. Lice move by crawling and cannot hop or fly. The lice feed on human blood, which can cause severe local itching. Head lice infestation is spread most commonly by close person-to-person contact. Dogs, cats, and other pets do not play a role in the transmission of human lice.

Each school year the issue of head lice becomes a concern for some families. The following evidenced based information is intended to increase head lice awareness so that parents can take steps at home to help prevent their children from acquiring head lice.

Parents should examine their child's head regularly, especially behind the ears and at the nape of the neck, for crawling lice and nits, if your child exhibits symptoms of a head lice infestation. If crawling lice or nits are found, all household members should be examined for crawling lice and nits every 2–3 days. 

Persons with live (crawling) lice or nits within 1⁄4 inch or less of the scalp should be treated. Do not treat any individual that does not have lice.

• Only 1 in 10 transmissions occur at school.
• The most common outbreaks are seen at the start of the school year, after winter break, spring break, all times when the students are out of school for extended periods.
• At the time live lice are found, the student has probably had the infestation for a while.
• Transmission occurs most often during play dates and sleep overs.
• Transmission can occur from shared hair care items, hats, etc. but is less likely.
• Lice do not jump and do not have wings so they cannot fly. They crawl.

Children diagnosed with live head lice do not need to be sent home early from school; they can go home at the end of the day, be treated, and return to class after appropriate treatment has begun. Nits may persist after treatment, but successful treatment should kill crawling lice.

Head lice can be a nuisance but they have not been shown to spread disease. Personal hygiene or cleanliness in the home or school has nothing to do with getting head lice.

The National Association of School Nurses, American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC all agree that classroom and/or school wide head lice screening programs have not had a significant effect on the incidence of head lice in the school setting over time and have not proven to be cost effective and therefore no longer recommend this practice. Doing these screenings also makes it impossible to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the students.

If you find head lice on your child, please notify the school and properly treat him/her at home. Continue to examine all family members for 2 weeks.

When to keep your child home: Child may return after their hair has been treated, clothes changed and there are no live lice present.