Wednesday, February 4, 2015

I am often asked by parents and staff what parameters I use to send a student home who has a cold and/or cough. In the winter season, here in Vermont, if all students and staff stayed home when they had the sniffles or a tickle in the back of their throat, we would not see each other until spring. Therefore, these are the general guidelines that I use.

As long as a student can manage their cough and secretions they can stay at school. What does this look like? The student coughs and sneezes into their elbow. The student uses a tissue to blow their nose, throws the tissue in the trash and immediately washes their hands. If the student coughs or sneezes into their hands, they wash their hands immediately.

If a student is not managing the cough and secretions (even after being taught how to, and this includes washing hands fairly independently), then I would consider sending them home, depending on how bad the cough and secretions are. Sharing of some germs is inevitable in life. But, if the sharing is beyond the norm, then it may be a good time to deal with the germs at home where we can keep from spreading them further in public.

Sometimes, no matter how well a student is managing their coughs and colds, they are miserable and unable to attend in class because of the frequent use of tissues and hand washing or frequent coughing, that it makes more sense to be at home where they can rest up and come back to school in the next day or so.

Sincerely,

Nurse Kristen

kristen.taylor@cesuvt.org

899-4680

Friday, January 30, 2015

Dear UID Families,

I have updated the Lice page on the Health Office Blog to give you more information on dealing with lice. Please read through this information. I think you will find this helpful.
Regularly checking heads is imperative to remaining lice free.
When you check heads it is helpful to wet the hair first, this slows down the lice; they can not run away as quickly on a wet head.

And, as always, please come see me in the Health Office if you have any questions or email me. I will be sure to get back with you as soon as I can.

Sincerely,

Nurse Kristen

kristen.taylor@cesuvt.org

899-4680

Monday, January 5, 2015

January 5th, 2015

Welcome back to the New Year! I hope you all had a Happy and Healthy Christmastime!

A few things to keep in mind as the new year begins:

1) The flue season is upon us. Please remember to have your children wash their hands after they cough, sneeze or blow their nose; after using the bathroom and before eating. If a family member is sick, it is also helpful to give them their own hand towel to use, separate from the general family hand towel. These actions will help to prevent the spread of germs.

2) Remember that lice live in the community at all times. We do not have any current cases of lice in the school that I am aware of, but that being said: Please check your children's heads on a regular basis at home. Regular head checks at home will catch lice sooner rather than later. Pick one night out of each week to routinely check. It is beneficial to be pro-active.

3) Dress warmly for the cold winter days ahead: Hats, gloves/mittens, scarves, snow pants, jackets and winter boots! This includes all students. At UID, we go out as long as the temperature w/wind chill is zero or above.

Sincerely,

Nurse Kristen

899-4680

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Dear Parents/Guardians, September 12, 2014

Welcome back to a new school year! We have been excited to hear about all the students summer activities. We are looking forward to another great year at Underhill ID School!

Here are some Health Tips to start the School year off well:

Be Active: Run, Dance, Walk, Bike, etc... '60' minutes of activity is recommended for students each and every day. Being Active not only helps our bodies to be healthy but helps our minds to be healthy also. Being Active helps our minds to learn and retain new information. How many minutes are you currently active each day? _____ What activities can you do to increase your activity each day? _________________,_____________,_________________.

It is recommended that 'screen time', which includes computer time, tv time and hand held device time/video games, should be limited to one hour or less a day.

Too much screen time can:

Make it hard for your child to sleep at night
Raise your child's risk of attention problems, anxiety, and depression
Raise your child's risk of gaining too much weight

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/patientinstructions/000355.htm

Mayo Clinic recommendations for Screen Time

Drink enough water: Our brains are made up of 77-78% water. Being just 2% dehydrated can make our bodies feel tired and our brains feel sluggish. Drink half your weight in ounces of water each day. So, if you weigh 44 pounds, you should drink 22 ounces of water a day. There are 8 ounces of water in one cup. So, how many cups of water would you need to drink for your weight? _____ Another indicator that you need to drink more water is when your urine is dark yellow in color. The color of urine, when you are well hydrated is light yellow to almost clear in color.

Get enough sleep: Children between the ages of 5-10 years old should be getting between 10-11 hours of sleep each night. Children who sleep well and get enough sleep at night do better in school. They are better able to pay attention and learn. So, if you need to get up at 6:30 in the morning to arrive at school on time, what time do you need to go to bed if you are going to get 10-11 hours of sleep?__________

And last but not least, eat well. This includes lots of fruits and vegetables along with protein, whole grain foods and dairy. Adding protein to your morning snack can give you the energy you need to keep going strong until lunch time. http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/

This is the time of year we also want to remind you to check your children for head lice. Lice are present in the community at all times. Transmission of lice in school is rare; only 1 out of 10 cases are transmitted at school. The most common times for lice to be transmitted are during summer, winter and spring breaks and whenever children are in the community for extended periods of time together. Once the children are back in school, this is the time when we notice the itching because children are now still enough to take notice of it.

Lice are often not found until the lice are well established. This could take from 6-8 weeks or longer. For this reason CESU school nurses strongly recommend regular home head checks. Regular home checks will catch lice much more quickly than waiting for the itching to occur before we take notice. If you have any questions, please contact me at Underhill ID School, 899-4680 or you can check out my Health Office Blog at http://nursekristenuid.blogspot.com/p/lice.html

We are a peanut/tree nut safe school. The first week of school we sent home the peanut/tree nut safe guidelines for our school. Please be sure to read this. It can also be found here: http://nursekristenuid.blogspot.com/p/peanuttree-nut-safe-guidelines.html