The Guthrie County Board of Supervisors met Tuesday.

 

The Board discussed head lice at area schools with Public Health Director Jotham Arber. Board Chair Mike Dickson directed Arber to reach out specifically to West Central Valley’s Stuart Elementary School to discuss the issue with the school nurse.

 

Arber says his department works closely with school districts on many health-related subjects, including lice, adding it’s the district’s role to make specific policies regarding the issue. “The way head lice works in schools, is the schools have jurisdiction over their students for head lice. We provide any services that the school nurse asks us to. We can’t go in and say ‘you can’t come to school’, we don’t have that jurisdiction on head lice, because while it is a communicable disease it’s not one that’s listed in our state laws that we can keep kids out of schools for — that’s a school (district) decision.”

 

Arber says in addition to meeting with school officials, his department can potentially provide financial assistance to local students in fighting lice in the West Central Valley Community School District, as well as the Panorama and AC/GC school districts. “We can go down there and provide some treatments and help out with staffing. If you have a situation with a family that can’t afford to take care of the problem, the Public Health department does have funds we can use to help abate the issue.”
Arber says it’s up to each school district to decide whether or not to alert parents that lice is present in their child’s school building.