Schools across the country (US), including ours in WI, have been looking for ways to reduce absenteeism thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act (Federal) and the AAP. AAP supported No-Nit Policies till this act. Our school TRIED to get rid of our head checks b/c our school nurse went to the NASN conf and was told by her mentor to get rid of them and our no-nit policies, following AAP recommendations. Us parents are following guidelines and recommendations from “head lice experts” and the best I have found in the US is Katie Shepherd of Lice Solutions, FL. Only non profit treatment facility in the country, also research & study. Lice & nit removal for all income levels, help has to be there for all, infact over 60% are free or at reduced payments. I continue to do school wide head checks and helping families for FREE with lice removal! This gets the children back in school as quickly and safely as possible, without the dangerous pesticides. We do not know what’s there unless we check and we need these checks and policies back in our schools! While I certainly do not want to see any child “left behind”, I certainly do not want to see a country forced to live with head lice when the key is help, not doing away with policies that just infest more. April, KA sent home 200 children and 18 teachers in a single school. I applaude Shakira for sharing her story with that little girl (I’m sure it meant the world to her) and for going public with her story. Everyone deserves help in getting past head lice because as you can see, other children tend to pick on them and this is worse than having the lice itself. So why will no one help? Why are schools throwing out policies that were once there to help minimize the spread of this unwanted bug? What do schools have to financially have to gain from doing away with such simple and not costly head checks? These are children, why would our schools want them to go through head lice if they didn’t have to? Instead of doing away with policies and pretending this is not a problem, why is our system not looking at ways to help families with head lice? The key is to help them so them can be in school lice and nit free and HAPPY. Why do our health clinic’s refuse to help, especially when the pesticides are failing? I don’t have lots of money, I help in our school and in our community for free. I hope this story encourages others who do have money to help support non-profits like Lice Solutions that in turn help families (all races, ages and sex). Celebs support a lot of causes, we would BE BLESSSED for Shakira to support head lice HELP since MOST tend to turn away. Thank you Shakira