If your child is sick, should they still go to school?

I think you have balance the child's interest against the potential for spreading the sickness. That's not always so easy. The doctor who writes the article points out that some colds and flus are infectious before one is symptomatic, and after in some cases. Even so, I'm sure there are a host of maladies that are best kept out of the public domain.

clipped from www.nytimes.com There are moments when I feel I have spent large parts of my professional life dropping off my own marginally ill children at school (or at day care) and then hurrying to work to examine children who are notably less sick but have been kept home by their parents and brought to see the doctor. I’m talking about the common cold, the winter crud, the lingering nasal drips and irritated coughs that mark our children’s passage through the varied mix of respiratory viruses — or perhaps mark the viruses’ passage through our children. Doctors, as a group, are big believers in sending children to school. Every doctor I’ve talked to is more concerned about children unnecessarily missing school than about their posing an infection risk to their classmates. What do we know about the common cold, and about how it is transmitted? Just how infectious is that child whose cough hangs on for weeks? And how about the one with the drippy nose?