If you pick up a child from school late in the day, that has a case for head lice and need of medical attention, what do you do?

The way you asked this, is it safe to assume you did not know the child had head lice? That the child left home in the morning without head lice and came home with it?

Understanding that a school is a breeding ground for head lice, I would give the school the benefit of the doubt this one time and inform them what you found. There are high chances that other children have it too now and it will continue to spread unless measures are taken to decontaminate the classroom and other affected areas of the school. It is also possible it went undetected this time.

Does the school have a nurse on staff? Call her and tell her what you found. You cannot send your child back to school until your doctor says it is okay. If the school does not have a nurse, you need to tell the teacher. You can call the public health nursing and report the head lice.

Please be aware that once an outbreak has occurred, this is a good chance of it happening again - because not all parents do a thorough job of following directions on getting rid of the lice. One has to be persistent and diligent in ridding the vermin.