Head Lice Checks

Faculty and staff will be notified of any students with life-threatening allergies to foods or stinging insects by the school nurse based on information provided by parents on their child’s health form.

Faculty and staff will be trained and certified in EpiPen administration yearly by the school nurse. This certification covers faculty and staff to administer an EpiPen to an allergic student who has been exposed to their allergen and is showing signs of anaphylaxis. Faculty and staff may administer the student’s own EpiPen or the school’s stock EpiPen, whichever is closer to the student at the time of the reaction. Lower school students’ EpiPens are stored in the Student Health Services Office. Students with food allergies have a second EpiPen in the dining hall. Students with bee or wasp allergies will have a second set of EpiPens that stays with the PE teachers. Upper school students’ EpiPens are stored in the executive assistant’s desk, and students with food allergies have a second EpiPen in the dining hall. Students with bee or wasp allergies should have a second set that stays with their coach or on them for sports.

Head Lice Checks

Head lice are a common occurrence among school-aged children. We take a proactive approach at Bement by screening students at the start of the school year and after each major school vacation by a professional nitpicker. If a student is found to have an active case of head lice, the student will need to be treated at home and rechecked by the school nurse before returning to the classroom. Students are re-screened approximately two weeks later to confirm that the initial case has been resolved and there are no new cases.

Given the proactive nature of our screening process, the risk of lice being spread at Bement is low. Classroom notifications are not done with typical head lice cases. The customary notification for the presence of head lice is to be done on an individual, case- by-case basis to the parent/guardian of an affected student. In rare cases, it may be appropriate in the professional opinion of the school nurse and in consultation with the division head to consider a general parent/guardian notification for a high number of identified cases of head lice. Such notification will be made with as much attention to the privacy of the infected student(s) as possible.