Helpful Guidelines: When to Keep Students Home

When children become ill, it is not always easy to determine when to send them to school. We are offering some guidelines to help with this dilemma. Any questions may be directed to your child’s school nurse or health care provider.

Children should stay home if they have diarrhea (3 or more loose or watery bowel movements) or vomiting.

Children should stay home if they have an oozing or contagious rash.

A child may attend school with the following symptoms:

• has only mild cold symptoms (cough, sneeze, runny/congested nose) or no cold symptoms
• has a normal temperature (under 100.0 degrees)
• has enough energy to do school work
• can keep from spreading germs by washing their hands (throwing away used tissues, coughing onto their sleeve, and coughing away from other people)

A child may NOT go to school when he or she:

• has a fever (temperature over 100.0 degrees) or needs fever-reducing medicine. Your child may return to school if the temperature is below 100.0 for at least 24 hours without Tylenol or ibuprofen.

We ask that a child remains home if the white part of the eye is red/ pink in color and there is yellow or green crust/ sticky substance in one or both eyes. If your child has ‘pink eye’ (conjunctivitis), they must stay home until they have been using antibiotic eye medication for 24 hours or more. Pink eye is highly contagious and can spread quickly.