Life in Israel: New Rules For Lice In School

Life in Israel: New Rules For Lice In School

If your kid has lice in school, you might end up having to speak to Social Services. That's right. New policy being implemented by the Ministry of Education is putting more responsibility on the parents to rid their kids' heads of lice, and less on the teachers. 

According to Ynet, teachers are no longer allowed to check heads for lice in school or gan. To do so, they would have to be given explicit permission in advance by the parents. As well, if a kid is found to have lice, the teacher can no longer send the kid home.

School staff will hold more frequent lessons for parents and for the kids how to deal with, and specifically to prevent, lice. As well, schools will have to come up with special activities for both parents and kids, and even schedule days for dealing with lice."

If the educational staff is under the impression that the parents are not dealing with the problem appropriately despite their notices and warnings and attempts, they will be instructed to involve Social Services.

I don't know if these new rules will help, but it is good they are taking it seriously. No matter how diligent a parent is in checking the kids head, if there is even just one set of parents in the class that does not take care of their kids head, all the efforts of the other parents are wasted, as the next morning in class the lice spreads again. Maybe the threat of involving social services due to this issue might keep even the less-diligent parents (by less-diligent I only mean regarding the lice issue) focused on this.

My wife always says that lice don't like dirty hair. So putting conditioner or gel into your hair apparently helps keep them away. But a quick google search has revealed that this is not so true, see e.g.  http://www.nittygritty.co.uk/site/headliceandnits.asp#10. Gotta go tell my wife to bathe the kids.