Head lice in schools

A single mother says she moved her children from Waterdown to downtown Hamilton in search for a better, more cultured life but she found very quickly that the only culture she found was that of lice that seemed to have an affinity for her young daughter’s head. Since arriving at Prince of Wales public school in September, Kaelah has contracted lice nine times. Fed up, her mom wants to see some change.

Jennifer says she’s spent nearly $1 000 on products to treat both her and her daughter’s hair.

“You just sit painstakingly and go through basically strand by strand and I use my nails to pull out egg by egg bug by bug and once I’m done that I turn the whole house apart.”

Since Hamilton public schools don’t have nurse-lead lice checks, Jennifer convinced the school to hire a private group for checks. In the end, 30 out of 31 classes had lice and 82 students had either the bugs or eggs in their hair. Hamilton Public Health nor the public school board could say whether those numbers are out of the ordinary.

Jennifer would like the schools to implement routine checks but the board is keeping the ball in the parent’s court.

“It’s really about parents and family having an awareness of what head lice is and what are the appropriate steps as individuals can take with their children to get treatment and support.” Peter Joshua, HWDSB.