Chances are that if you have a child in school, someone you know – or even you – has received a dreaded letter from the school. It states that a child in the classroom has head lice and his classmates’ parents should monitor their children’s heads for signs of the six legged pests.

Now Hillsborough School District’s policy regarding head lice has triggered at least one parent’s complaints that it is undermining his children’s education.

Head lice are crawling insects with claws used to grasp hair. The eggs of the head louse are called nits. Nits are laid by live lice and are attached to the hair shaft with a strong, glue-like substance. It takes approximately one week to ten days for a nit to hatch and another seven to ten days for a female to mature and begin laying more eggs. Head lice live on human blood and will not survive for more than 24 hours off their human host. They cannot fly, hop or jump.

John Heller of Village Green recently contacted WOW about his family’s struggle to eliminate lice from his children’s hair. Heller became frustrated with the school district’s “no nit” policy, which calls for sending a child home until the hair is completely void of live lice as well as nits. Heller says his children were treated twice with a recommended chemical claiming to be five times more powerful than Raid. He also estimates his wife and he spent 50 to 60 hours working towards removing the nits. His children missed six days of school while he and his wife worked toward removing the eggs.

Heller feels the district’s “no nit” policy is unwarranted and kept his children from valuable classroom time. He says the information he found states a louse must crawl from one person’s head to another or that there must be head-to-head contact between two people for one to get lice from another. Heller suspects one of his children caught lice from the other because they are siblings and therefore share combs and hairpieces. He says even though they live in the same house, neither he nor his wife contracted lice from their children. This has added to his doubt that classmates can easily contract lice from one another. He also sites findings published by Dr. Richard Pollack of Harvard School of Public Health as well as The National Association of School Nurses.

Pollack states, “Although head lice are transmissible, their potential for epidemic spread is minimal. Furthermore, we are unaware of any convincing data that demonstrates that enforced exclusion policies are effective in reducing the transmission of lice. It is our professional opinion that the no-nits policies are imprudent, as they are based on intolerance, hysteria and misinformation rather than on an objective science.” An article published by the National Association of School Nurses concurred. It states, “It is the position of the National Association of School Nurses that the management of pediculosis should not disrupt the education process.”

Steve Hegarty, Hillsborough County Public Schools’ communication officer, was uncooperative with WOW’s request for clarification or explanation of the district’s head lice policy. Westchase Elementary School Principal Joyce Wieland referred health related questions to School Health Services.

Supervisor of School Health Services Sandra Gallogly explained that the “no nit” policy is maintained because even though lice don’t carry or transmit any diseases, they are considered, in the medical field, a nuisance. Gallogly explained that lice “are thermally sensitive and really don’t like to move from one person to another.” She says the research states it takes approximately one minute for a louse to crawl from one head to another. She also acknowledges the lengthy time it takes to remove every nit from a child’s head, but feels that maintaining the “no nit” policy prevents other families from having to go through the same procedure. “Why expose children unnecessarily to that?” she says. “We do it because it’s a nuisance and we want to stop this nuisance.”

Gallogly says that once a student is found to have lice, the child is sent home immediately. A letter is sent home with the child and it includes instructions on how to treat the hair for removal. Letters are also sent home with classmates to advise parents of the matter. Before re-entering the classroom, the student must pass inspection of the school’s nurse. If live bugs are gone but nits remain, the student is not allowed back into the classroom until all nits are removed.

When asked for the number of cases of lice at Westchase Elementary this year, Gallogly stated there have been seven reported cases for the year. This number, however, conflicts with a much higher number suggested by parents of Westchase Elementary students. A number of parents in speaking to WOW staff claim that at least seven students have been found with lice in their children’s classrooms alone. If true, this could raise important questions about their ease of transmission. Westchase Elementary staff, however, declined to provide their own count, again referring WOW to Gallogly’s office. When pressed for greater accuracy in the numbers, Gallogy declined to provide further information.

Of the current “no nit” policy Heller stated, “I think if parents are aware of the situation and are actively treating for it, then [their children] should be allowed in the classroom. If you read the research, you’ll see you practically have to be head-against-head.” Referring to the time period his children were not allowed into the classroom, which coincided with FCAT testing, Keller remarked, “If they were in third grade this year, they would have missed the most important testing of the year.”