Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) Guidelines for Handling Head Lice in Classrooms

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines developed to assist schools "current evidence does not support the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of classroom or school-wide screening for decreasing the incidence of head lice among school children… ‘No-nits’ policies that require a child to be free of nits before they can return to school are not recommended." (www.cdc.gov/lice/head/schools.html)
• When the school is informed about a student with head lice, the student is checked for live lice when the child returns to school after treatment. 
• If the child is identified with live lice at school, the parent is called and the child is sent home for treatment. 
• The child must be treated and then can return to school.  LCPS does not exclude children after treatment if nits remain.
• Parents are encouraged to comb out the nits because some may remain viable after treatment.  The nits will remain on the hair until the hair falls out.  These remaining nits may confuse the casual observer to believe that there is an active case of head lice.
• A child who has returned to school after treatment will be checked privately in the clinic every week for two to three weeks to be sure that no new lice are found.
•  A letter maybe sent home to the parents of classmates when there are multiple cases of head lice reported in the same classroom.