Head Lice

Table of Contents

Head lice can be a nuisance for children and adults. School nurses and school health personnel may spend a disproportionate amount of their time addressing head lice issues, considering that they pose no health hazard and do not spread disease. Head lice are not related to a person’s cleanliness. The time children spend out of the classroom for head lice equates to a loss of education program minutes with their educators. 

Recommendations for the following prevention and control measures for schools:

  1. Discontinue any routine school-based screening. Current evidence does not support classroom or school-wide screening as a method to stop head lice transmission. Instead, schools should offer education to parents and staff about lice awareness, detection, treatment, and prevention. 

  2. Parents should be encouraged to regularly screen their children for lice. It should be assumed that head lice are in the community at all times.  School personnel may communicate and provide educational materials on an annual basis with parents using resources provided by Iowa HHS.

  3. Healthy children should remain in their education program for the remainder of the day if head lice are identified by the school nurse. 

  4. Do not use environmental sprays or chemical cleaners in the classrooms, lockers, on gym mats, or other school equipment. Head lice do not live “off” the body. Only ordinary cleaning, vacuuming, and washing in hot water are needed. 

  5. Always use caution with sprays and other chemicals that can be potentially harmful, since they can be absorbed through an individual's skin and may be irritating to an individual’s lungs. 

  6. If parents share that treatment with over-the-counter shampoos and use of a nit comb fails, recommend that they speak with their healthcare provider.

  7.  In the classroom, limit sharing items that touch the head and practice minimizing head-to-head contact by spacing desks and chairs apart, and have students hang coats and hats separately. 

General actions when the school or program is notified by the child’s parent that their child has headlice: 

  • Protect all learners’ confidentiality
  • Do not segregate the learner from other classmates
  • Have all learners put coats, hats, scarves, and gloves into their backpacks
  • Monitor how close all learners are sitting to one another with the table top and carpet activities