Kids sent home from daycare when they are well enough to stay

Parents may be leaving work to pick up their sick children for no reason.

According to a recent study done in the Milwaukee area, many children are sent home from daycare when they are actually well enough to stay. Mainly the studies showed that the cases generally had to deal with ailments such as pink eye, ringworm or mild fever.

The study published by Pediatrics journal surveyed 300 Milwaukee-area child care directors and found that children were being sent home with mild symptoms when they could actually have stayed at the daycare. The study suggests that child care directors need to be better educated on the guidelines for sending sick children home.

The study consisted of researchers giving the directors five different scenarios of sick children. They then asked the directors whether or not the child should be sent home. According to guidelines by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association, in every instance the child should not have been sent home immediately. The study showed that many of the directors failed the test; the less experienced directors were more likely to say they would send the children home.

This information poses a problem for working parents who have to leave work in order to pick up a sick child. They sometimes have to take unpaid sick leave or scramble in order to find someone to pick up their child.