Happy New Year Tiger Sharks!
We are looking forward to a GREAT start in 2026! It is nice seeing the staff and students back to school today.
Since we have entered the COLD and Flu season, let us not forget the NOROVIRUS, RSV, and COVID, which are present. To ensure that our WLMS school community is healthy, please review the guidelines below to support you as you make decisions about keeping your child home from school.
Please be mindful, if your child’s symptoms need medication prior to their school day, consider why the medication is being administered. This is a good indication that your child should remain at home until the symptoms are resolved.
Symptoms to keep your child home:
- Fever (100.0F or high). Your child must be fever free for 24 hours (without the use of fever reducing medication) prior to returning to school.
- Diarrhea (2 or more watery stools in a 24-hour period) especially if your child acts or looks ill.
- Vomiting (with or without a fever) within the past 24 hours or unable to eat a meal, keep them home for 24 hours after their last episode
- Cough If your child cannot speak a complete sentence, medical attention is needed. Please contact the child’s physician. Your child may bring in non-medicated cough drops in their original packing. Please discuss with your student they may not share their cough drops. The student could have a food allergy to the cough drop. This could result in an anaphylactic shock episode.
- Sore throat, greenish nose discharge and/or chronic cough – should be seen by a health care provider. These conditions could be contagious and require treatment.
- Eyes- thick mucus or pus draining from the eye or pink eye. With the pink eye (conjunctivitis) you may see a white or yellowish discharge, matted eyelids after sleep, eye pain, and/or redness. Conjunctivitis is highly contagious.
To prevent respiratory illnesses, take the following steps:
- Frequent hand washing (sing happy birthday twice) this reduces the spread disease
- Instruct your child to sneeze or cough into a tissue or into their elbow
- Sanitize surfaces frequently
- If you feel sick wear a mask and distance yourself from others
- Stay home if you are sick and contact your physician
Reminders:
- If your student is diagnosed with any illness that could spread to others (flu, GI bug, RSV, Strep throat, etc.), please contact the health room so we can monitor additional cases and outbreaks. Joni_dorsey@hcpss.org or Thomasena_brown@hcpss.org
- Please keep your emergency contact information up to date as the school may contact you to pick up an ill student. If parents are unable to pick up a student, please provide additional contact information. We cannot keep students that are sick in the health room for any extended time.
- Parents picking up students must come into the building to sign them out. Please bring your drivers license or another form of identification.
- When your student is home sick, please send an email to WLMS Absence@hcpss.org
Lastly:
- Student that requests to wear a mask (because of symptoms) parents will provide them. The health room does not have masks for students. We have had masks donated but school health services are not supplying them.
- The health room does not have medication to distribute to students such as Motrin, Tylenol, and Advil. The parent can request a medication administration form to be completed by a physician and parent will supply the health room with an unopened container.
Thank you,
WLMS health room staff 410-313-8940