A nit and a hard place

Parents pull pupils to protest pediculosis policy

Kristy Sinclair has a personal policy: don’t complain if you won’t fight back. And when she received a notice in the January, 2016 newsletter from her school informing parents of the update to the no-nit policy in Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board (HPEDSB) schools, she saw plenty of reasons to complain.

“I was furious. We as parents have dealt with head lice before. It’s a big deal. It’s not a simple little—you take a pill, or you sleep for a few days, you feel better. It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of money, and there’s health issues that come with that too, because the treatments are really dangerous,” says Sinclair. “We actually came across a mother in our group whose daughter has cancer, and she was furious, because…she feels the board’s not listening to her.”

The new policy, known as Procedure 321, was a shift from what was called the no-nit policy, in which a child found to have head lice eggs in their hair was asked to stay home from school until further checks revealed they were free of lice, or pediculosis.

Beginning in January 2016, HPEDSB changed the policy, allowing kids to stay in school, but informing parents that they needed to treat their children for the infestation. This change was meant to reflect the board’s goal to keep as many kids in school as often as possible.

A shift many other school boards in Ontario are also following, the new policy conforms with the Canadian Paediatric Society’s claim that since head lice is not a health issue, it should not prevent kids from being in class and learning.

The decision was also supported by Hastings Prince Edward Public Health Unit’s health protection department manager, Bill Sherlock, who, in a letter to HPEDSB stated, “School exclusion, early dismissal and no-nit policies are not supported by current research. The burden of unnecessary absenteeism far outweighs the risks associated with head lice.”

Sinclair disagrees. Yesterday, she and many other parents in the HPEDSB district kept their children at home in protest. It’s the latest in a series of strategies she’s been using to try to reverse the policy change.

She began by going to her kids’ Belleville school to get more information about the policy. Then she visited the board office, contacting everyone she could to find out why the policy had changed, and whether she could petition to change it back.

She learned there is no mandate from the provincial government, but rather, the board itself had made the decision. On February 22, she presented a petition to the board, but it was turned down. Then, she consulted a lawyer, who warned her board decisions are rarely reversed in court because parents often can’t afford the legal costs associated with fighting the board. So she began a crowdsourcing campaign to raise $15,000 to cover those fees.

“This is a choice,” says Sinclair of contributing to the walkout and crowd-funding campaign. “I’m trying to do what the board didn’t do and give the parents an option.”

She also began a Facebook group to discuss the new policy with other parents. Since its creation in mid-January, the group has expanded to over 2,300 members. She has spoken to local media and has been interviewed by CBC and CTV.

Kerry Donnell, who manages public relations for the board, says that while the board recognizes managing new cases of pediculosis is a nuisance for parents, interviews with other board that have taken on the policy have suggested no increase in the incidence of such cases.

Donnell says each school will be tasked with creating a plan to mitigate the spread of nits and lice.

“We made a commitment to openly communicate the revisions to the procedure. Notices were sent home through school newsletters and information was provided from local health units in order to try to dispel the myths and misinformation which are prevalent with regards to head lice,” says Donnell. “Through this new process, each school is responsible for developing a management plan for cases of head lice, which should include helping families to work through infestations of their children.”