Every parent has stood in a kitchen at 7 AM weighing a slightly warm forehead against a meeting they cannot move. It is a horrible decision and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Here is our line, stated plainly so you can make the call quickly.
Keep your child home if
- Fever of 38°C or above, or a fever in the last 24 hours. They need to be fever-free for a full 24 hours without medication before returning.
- Vomiting or diarrhoea — two or more episodes, and again 24 hours clear before returning.
- A rash you cannot explain, particularly with a fever.
- Pink eye with discharge, until treatment has been underway for 24 hours.
- A cough severe enough that they cannot take part in the day or cannot sleep.
- Any communicable illness a doctor has told you to isolate for.
- Simply too unwell to participate. No fever, no specific symptom, but flat and miserable. Trust that judgement. It is usually right.
Send them in for
A runny nose with no fever, a mild cough with normal energy, teething, a healed-over scrape, or a known non-contagious rash like eczema. A centre that excluded every runny nose in an Edmonton February would be empty.
Why the 24-hour rules exist
They are not arbitrary caution. Most of the contagious window for the common gastrointestinal and viral illnesses sits in the hours right after symptoms stop, which is exactly when a child seems better and a parent understandably wants to send them.
Sending a child back too early is how one case becomes eleven — including staff, which then affects every family in the room. The 24-hour buffer is the difference between a household illness and a centre outbreak.
What happens when we call you
If your child develops symptoms during the day, we call you and ask you to collect them. They will be kept comfortable and, where practical, apart from the group.
We need you or an emergency contact to be reachable. This is the reason the emergency contact section of the registration form matters — we are not collecting names for a file, we are collecting the people we will actually be ringing at 2 PM.
We also need an alternative arrangement for the days your child cannot be here. Please have one thought out before you need it.
Fees during illness
Fees are not reduced for absence, including illness. That is a hard thing to read when your child has been off for a week, and the reason is that the space, the staffing, and the room are all held for you. Every licensed centre in Alberta operates this way.
Full policy detail is in the FAQ.
