Dear St. Simon Families,
What a wonderful day today! We had
costumes all around us, Kindergarten Halloween Performances,
Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergaren Trick or Treat Parades, Halloween
Costume Contest, and Classroom Halloween Parties! Thank you for making
this a great and memorable day! A special thank you to all of our room
parents for all of the their work with the Halloween Parties.
Just a few announcements for the weekend:
Christmas Wreath Order Forms
Please return your wreath order forms to Church this weekend! Or to school by Monday!
Thank you for supporting St.Simon Parish Youth.
H1N1 Information from the CDC:
Students with ill household members need to stay home
Lice Information:
Nits are the eggs head lice lay which are firmly
attached to the hair with glue like substance.
Nits cannot be killed by chemical products as they
are encapsulated in a self-protective
shell.
Nits will hatch 7-10 days after being laid. If they are not manually removed from the hair following
treatment, there will be a re-infestation in 7-10 days.
1. Treatment
Do not over treat by leaving medication on the head
longer than recommended.
Do not treat people who are not infested. Treat only those who have evidence of
lice (live lice or nits).
Before using the preparation, wash the hair with a
shampoo without conditioner.
After treatment, do not rewash the hair; use a
cream rinse or conditioner.
Wait at least 2-3 days before washing hair.
Put on clean clothing after the treatment.
If live lice are seen 8-12 hours following
treatment, but are moving more slowly, do not
retreat at this time. Comb the dead, remaining live lice and nits from the hair
with a lice or flea comb.
Re-treat in the time frame recommended by the
product.
Itching of the head following treatment, is not
necessarily an indication that the treatment is not working or of a
re-infestation, but may be from residual scalp irritation.
2.
If after 8-12 hours no dead lice are found and live lice are active, the
treatment
didn’t work.
The directions were not followed carefully.
The nits were not completely removed from the hair.
There was a re-exposure from another person.
The medication was not effective against the
lice. Consult with your physician
to determine if a prescription pediculocide needs to be used before
retreating. Do not re-treat with
the same medication initially used.
3. Combing
The hair must be combed daily, preferably in
natural light, to remove nits. Use
a fine, long toothed metal nit comb (LiceMeister, Robi Comb) or flea comb to go
through the hair. Nits can also be
removed by scraping them off with a fingernail or cutting the individual hair.
The nits are most often the culprits of
re-infestation. If they are not
completely
removed from the hair, they will hatch in
7-10 days and cause another cycle.
Vacuum the area after combing.
A product that claims it will kill nits, still
instructs in small print that the nits must be
removed from the hair.
The
hair must be combed daily for 2-3 weeks following head lice infestation.
Check the heads of all people in the household.
4.
Environment
After using the head lice product, all personal
items and your home must be cleaned.
Wash clothing, bedding in hot water and dry on hot
cycle. Items which cannot be
washed
(quilts, toys, stuffed animals) should be dry
cleaned or stored in a plastic bag for 3 weeks.
Soak combs, brushes, and hair adornments in
130-degree water for at least 15 minutes.
Vacuum carpets, furniture, mattresses, car, and car
seats.
Do not use a fumigant spray.
5. Prevention / Precautions
Head lice are spread by direct contact with an
infested person. Personal contact is common in play, sport activities, home
situations, slumber parties, camp.
Direct contact with infested clothing (hats, scares, caps, sports uniforms,
hair ribbons,
Halloween costumes), as will sharing infested
combs, brushes, towels, a bed, couch, pillow, or carpet will also spread
lice.
Do not share or use personal items or clothing not
your own.
Travel time, holidays, vacations are potentially
high exposure periods.
Be vigilant about checking your child’s head before
and after sleepovers, camps, and
holidays.
6.
Alternative Treatments
There is NO documentation that the
following treatments work:
Vinegar, tea tree oil or other compounds reported
to loosen the glue attaching the
nits to the hair.
Mayonnaise, olive oil, petroleum jelly, butter or
other lotions that claim to
“suffocate” or smother lice. Lice do not require much air to remain
viable, and oil
or mayonnaise can easily be rubbed off.
Pure tea tree oil is contraindicated for babies,
young children and pregnant women.
It is not to be used daily and is liver toxic in
high doses.
7.
Local treatment places
There
are local hair salons that will treat the head lice and remove the nits from
the hair.
Lovebugs
4037
El Camino Way
Palo
Alto, CA 94306
650.493.LICE
(5423)
8.
Notify
Please notify the parents of your child’s friends,
school, day care, coach or leader of
activities (scouts, gymnastics, baseball) if your
child has head lice. Head lice are
not a
reflection on hygiene or grooming. The more quickly the cycle of
infestation is broken, the more quickly the situation is resolved.
St. Simon Policy on Lice:
We
are following our NO NIT policy
If
your child has nits they must go home
Nits
are the casings for the lice, not live bugs
IN ORDER FOR STUDENTS TO RETURN TO SCHOOL THEY MUST HAVE THE BOX USED TO TREAT THE CHILD OF LICE, OR A LETTER FROM
A CERTIFIED LICE REMOVAL SERVICE / DOCTOR………THERE WILL BE NO EXCEPTIONS!!!!
Thank you for your support with these matters.
Have a safe and fun Halloween weekend!
--
Blessings,
Steven M. Clossick
Principal
St. Simon Catholic School
1840 Grant Road
Los Altos, CA 94024
650.968.9952 Ext. 11
http://www.stsimon.org
"Patience is the companion of wisdom." --- Saint Augustine
Posted on
Fri, October 30, 2009
by Steven Clossick