CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WTVR) - Chesterfield County Schools take a hands-off approach to allowing their students to use hand sanitizer. They do not permit their students to have it in school, and some parents are questioning that policy.
Aaron Allen's daughter will go to Jacob's Road Elementary in Chesterfield in a few years.
“If you think of hand sanitizer it's certainly not something you would think of as harmful,” says Aaron Allen, whose daughter will attend Jacob Road Elementary in three years. “As a parent I would be more interested in a little reasoning behind it instead of just telling me my child can't have it.”
Chesterfield School officials say the no hand sanitizer policy has been a longstanding practice, but some parents say that’s news to them.
“Because all through last year, I still was sending it with them,” says Carol Giddings, who has three children in Chesterfield Schools.
The Center for Disease Control lists alcohol based hand sanitizer as a method of preventing the spread of flu in K-12 schools.
However, reports of product misuse, like a group of California teenagers who had to go to the hospital after drinking alcohol they extracted from hand sanitizer, have some in Central Virginia concerned.
“I did hear if the little ones get too much of it, it will make them really ill,” says Sue Osterbind, who is a mother and grandmother living in Chesterfield.
Both Richmond and Henrico schools do not keep hand sanitizer from students in their hallways, and some Chesterfield parents feel the no hand sanitizer policy is a bit of a reach.
“It's good to take some precautions on safety, but you know their knit-picking, which I believe is a little extreme,” says Larry Smith, who has a daughter in Chesterfield Schools.
Chesterfield County Schools were not available for comment on this story.
