The Los Angeles Unified School District has dropped its head lice policy in favor of one that is more lenient, allowing students to miss much less school because of the pesky condition. But that change has left some parents scratching their heads.
For years, the district's policy was clear: Children with head lice were sent home and not permitted to return to school until the lice and all their eggs, or nits, had been treated and removed.
But the no-nit policy kept children out of school for days on end as nervous parents scrubbed shampoos on their sons and daughters, then combed through every strand of hair in search of eggs.
And every time they missed a few, their child would be sent home.
This year the district switched to a no-lice policy. It means that students can return to school with lice eggs in their hair, so long as the nits have been treated.
"The eggs themselves are not infectious," said Dr. Kimberly Uyeda, the school system's director of student medical services. "An egg isn't going to jump from one head to another."
Less than 18% of eggs that are found are hatched, Uyeda said. And "once you treat it, the likelihood that you'll spread it to someone else is very low."
Some parents aren't buying it.
"Are these people crazy?" said a baffled Barbara Bernato, a Riverside Drive Elementary parent.
"They hatch. These kids come in with nits for seven days and then they come back with live lice in their hair," she said.
Other parents suspect the district is searching for ways to keep students in class for the sake of more state attendance dollars.
"If you're absent, then they can't make money off of you," said Riverside Drive Elementary parent Elena Diona of Studio City. "The policy is just messed up."
Diona and dozens of other parents from neighboring schools met with Uyeda and other district officials at the Riverside Drive campus in Sherman Oaks last month to discuss their disgust with the new policy.
Officials tried to dispel suspicions that the policy change was made to boost enrollment and curb student absences because of head lice.
Asthma -- not head lice -- is the No. 1 reason why children miss school, said Karen Maiorca, the district's director of nursing services. Dental appointments are the second leading cause of absences, Uyeda told the parents.
So if the district wanted to increase enrollment, "we certainly wouldn't do it through head lice," Uyeda said.
