The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) has  guidelines that capture the state legislation  pertaining to communicable disease in the school setting.These guidelines are a tool to assist in communicable disease control.  While it is important to control the  spread of severe disease in the school setting, it is important to also understand minor childhood illnesses and  support the optimal attendance.

The Tri-County Local Health Departments have a simplified chart for illness exclusion (when your child will be sent home or when to keep your child home:




ODE lists the following symptoms as excludable:

• Fever greater than 100.5 
• Vomiting
  
• Stiff neck or headache with fever
• Any new onset of rash with or without fever
  
• Unusual behavior change, such as irritability, lethargy, or somnolence
• Jaundice (yellow color or skin or eyes) 
• Diarrhea (3 watery or loose stools in one day with or without fever) 
• Skin lesions that are “weepy” (fluid or pus-filled) 
• Colored drainage from eyes 
• Brown/green drainage from nose with fever of greater than 100.5 F

Because diseases are only excludeable by the LHD once diagnosed, symptoms compatible with specific conditions are excludable at the school level.
Because the school setting serves as the most common congregate setting for a large percent of the population on a regular basis,  it is necessary to impose control measures.  These control measures are provided by state agencies and schools are obliged to follow the measures, the district  defers to these measures for the purposes of communicable disease control in school. The purpose around this is to prevent transmission of diseases associated with high morbidity and mortality.

Please keep your students home when the above listed symptoms are present