HEALTH ROOM

The health room at Swallow School is staffed by a Registered Nurse with oversight from a Medical Director/Medical Doctor. The primary role of the school nurse is to support student learning. The nurse accomplishes this by implementing strategies that promote student and staff health and safety.

Basic Guidelines for Swallow School Health Room

• When your child is sick they should stay home.  The general rule is 24 hours fever/vomiting free.  That is fever free without any medication.  Also, bad coughs, persistent runny noses/sneezing and diarrhea are other reasons to keep your kids home.  This not only protects the welfare of other students/staff, but also keeps your kids who are ill, with an overworked immune system, from contracting a secondary infection.
• If children leave school due to illness, they are not permitted to attend extra-curicular or after-school events.
• Occasionally in school age children, lice can become an issue. Although not an emergent health concern, it can be spread with close contact. If children contract lice they will be excluded from school until treatment is complete and they return free of louse or eggs. It is important to notify school if it is discovered your child has lice. They will need to be rechecked by Swallow Staff before being allowed back into the classroom. Please remember to check your child often; most important time of year being in the fall and after major school breaks.
• If over the counter medications are to be given to a student during the school day, a signed release including name of medication, dosage, time, reason and duration must be provided to the health room (see Medication Administration Authorization Form below). Families are also responsible for providing their own medication in the original bottle, to be stored in the health room, and distributed only to their children, with the aforementioned release. Occasionally, families have found this helpful, for their children who might, for example, have frequent headaches or pain from braces, to have a bottle of acetaminophen/ibuprophen here at school.
• If your child will not be coming to school, you need to call the office no later than 8:30, and let the school know not to expect your child. Also, we in the health room track our Swallow infection rate, so it is important to let the office know what symptoms your child is experiencing. For example, “runny nose and cough”, “diarrhea”, “vomiting”, and/or “fever”. If your child has a physician confirmed illness, we of course would like to know that. The reason we ask for symptoms of an illness, or confirmed physician diagnosis, is because in the past some parents have called and reported “flu”. The Flu, or Influenza, is a physician confirmed diagnosis, and unfortunately, mistakenly gets used to describe a variety of symptoms that range from vomiting and diarrhea to cough and upper respiratory. So to decrease the confusion, unless confirmed by a physician, please only report the symptoms of the illness.
• According to state mandates we are required by law to report Category I, II, and III illness to the Waukesha County Health Department. This reporting process allows us to assist the county in preventing the spread of contagious illness.

The practices and guidelines we follow are under the recommendation of the Waukesha County Health Division and the Centers for Disease Control. For more information on these agencies or questions regarding potential illnesses or practice guidelines, please see: www.dhfs.wisconsin.gov or www.cdc.gov.

As always, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to call,
367-2000, and ask to speak with the Health Room Staff.