Parents express their frustration over head lice
BELLEVILLE – Parents are ready to take the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board to court if they don’t change a new procedure allowing students with lice to attend school.
Frustrated parents filled the room at the board meeting on Monday night expressing their dislike of the change.
Local moms Kristy Sinclair and Samantha Dunkley spoke at the meeting trying to convince board members to remove the new procedure. Sinclair went in depth about the side effects of getting rid of lice.
“You run into the issue that if your kid gets rid of the lice and you send them back to school and they get it again, you won’t be able to use the treatment for another couple days”, said Sinclair.
Dunkley started a petition with over a thousand supporters already feeling the same way she does.
“These are all parents showing support and making comments saying that they are outraged because this is a decision that parents should have been consulted on”, she said.
Kerry Donnell, the communications officer for the school board, said that procedures are run by staff and not through the board of trustees. That’s why, she said, parents weren’t notified of the change beforehand.
Donnell also added that the board did do their research before they put out this procedure.
“We did look at research from the medical community and checked in with the local health units to gather information about current stats on this topic”, she said.
Bill Sherlock, the promotion program manager at the Hastings and Prince Edward public health unit says that lice isn’t known for transmitting any infectious diseases.
He also said that the Canadian Paediatric Society states that head lice is a nuisance and not a public health concern.
Frustrated parents like Sinclair and Dunkley do say they believe that lice may not be an over all health concern, but they also think it can lead to many other mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.
“I just think that there are so many other aspects like mental health that should of been taken into consideration when the board made this decision, and they just didn’t”, says Sinclair.
If the school board doesn’t change it mind about the procedure then Sinclair says she’s ready to do whatever it takes, with the support of other parents.
“I’m going to be putting up a GoFundMe page and we are going to try the hardest we can to come up with the funding to get a lawyer”, she said.
Dunkley says that if every parent chips in $5 then they will have the money they need to bring this to court.
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