Health Office

Devon Sheehan School Nurse

Email Devon Sheehan 304

Absences and Illnesses

Please remember to report your child's absence by calling 364-0197 or using the Report an Absence button at the top of the webpage.

Please leave a brief message including your child's symptoms, so that I may monitor for spread of illness in school. All information is kept confidential. Please be sure to do a daily assessment of your child and keep them home if they have any signs of illness.

What's Going Around

12/17/25: Reports of a few Middle school students with a body ache, sore throat viral illness over the weekend. Two cases strep throat in Primary

(This space is updated on an as-needed basis)

Physicals

Physicals are required for all new entrants to school, all Pre-K and K students, all students in Grade 6, and any students in Grades 7 and 8 who plan to play school sports. This physical should be valid for the entire season of the sport played.

Page one of the blue form must be completed by the parent. The rest must be completed by the child's physician.

Blue form

Immunizations

All students in State of Connecticut Public Schools are required to be fully immunized unless they have a valid medical exemption. Religious exemptions are no longer accepted.

Current requirements can be found in the document below. Connecticut Department of Public Health is the best place to find the State of Connecticut's vaccination requirements.

2026 Immunization Requirements for Enrolled Students in Connecticut Schools

2026 IMMUNIZATION REQUIREMENTS FOR ENROLLED STUDENTS IN CONNECTICUT SCHOOLS

Screenings in Schools

The State of Connecticut requires certain health screenings to be performed each year by the School Nurse.

Vision and Hearing are required in EK/K and grades 1, 3, 4 & 5- as well as done on the required grade 6 physical.

Postural assessment, which assesses for signs of scoliosis, is required for all girls in grades 5 and 7 and all boys in grade 8. If this has been done by the pediatrician on a physical and submitted, or the student is undergoing treatment for scoliosis and is under the care of a physician, then the screening at school will be waived.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Respiratory Safety Measures

Respiratory Safety Measures

To keep our school community safe and able to learn:

Daily check expectation for all students (done by parents) and self-assessment for all staff to determine if there are symptoms of illness. If ill, stay home and follow guidelines for return.
Report to the school nurse if you will be absent.
If symptoms of illness, check for elevated temperature, must remain out until fever-free for 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication. (Fever is considered a temperature greater than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.)
If other symptoms, like cough, runny nose, etc., please do a rapid covid test while symptomatic and before attending school, if negative and fever-free without medication, you may attend school if you feel able to do so.
Frequent hand washing/ use of hand sanitizer
Practice good respiratory hygiene, covering coughs, sneezes, use of tissue
If Covid positive: remain home until you are fever-free for 24 hours without the use of medications, your other symptoms are improving, and you are able to participate fully in your day. It is recommended to mask upon return, and follow good respiratory etiquette to help decrease the chances of spreading to others.
Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about your child's health

Attendance FAQs

Attendance FAQs

Chronically Truant and Chronically Absent are not the same.

Chronically truant is triggered when the student has unexcused absences over the parent count of nine. Which is why doctor's notes are encouraged any time your child goes to the doctor as those are not in the parent count. Once a child is identified as chronically truant, parents/guardians receive notification and further intervention may be indicated. Chronically Absent is triggered by # of absences, excused or unexcused for any student greater than 10% of the current days of enrollment. For example if we have been in school for 114 days and your child has been absent (excused or unexcused) for 11 days- that would be 10% and is reported automatically to the State. They collect the data monthly. For the entire year, 18 days out of the 180 total days in session, would be 10%. The results of chronically absent students is available by statistics, not personal identification to anyone looking up information on our school.

1. Parents can call their children out as absent for any reason up to nine times without written documentation by a doctor or other provider, but it does need to be reported to the school nurse to be excused.

2. After absence nine, documentation is required, so if a child is sick, that would be a doctor's note, or the absence may be excused for the other reasons listed in our policy and the appropriate documentation.

3. To help keep absences down for the parent under the nine count, it is a good idea to get a doctor's note whenever your child goes to the doctor for an illness, as those would not be in the parent count of nine. It is also a good idea to schedule appointments either early in the morning or in the later afternoon, so your child does not need to miss the entire day and could come late or leave early to accommodate those appointments.

4. We encourage vacations and time away to be scheduled when school is not in session and much time is already built into the school calendar during the year to take those breaks but if you do have plans during the school year, getting the Extraordinary Educational Opportunities ( Planned Leave form), filled out and signed off on by the Principal BEFORE going away, would excuse those absences without being in the Parent count of nine. Keep in mind though that those absences do accrue into the potential 10% of the school year missed for chronically absent.

5. There are no longer any allotted days to be out for mental health days. If your child needs a mental health day, then that day out will be in the parent count of absences.

6. The School Nurse can excuse an absence for illness, if they have dismissed your child ill, or determined they were ill. However, we can only excuse them for a couple of days, if illness is taking longer to resolve, they need to be evaluated by their doctor.

7. To report your child absent, please contact the nurse directly, you may leave a message on my confidential line, 860-364-0197 or email me at [email protected]

Please call me or stop in anytime, if you have questions or any health concerns you need clarified. My door is always open.