Sample Letter to Parents from School Regarding Classroom Presentation
This may be reproduced by schools.

Dear Parents:

One of our students, (name) , has recently been diagnosed with childhood cancer. S/he is being treated by the Washington University Division of Hematology/Oncology medical staff at St. Louis Children's Hospital. (Name) goes to the hospital regularly for treatments but s/he will be able to come to school part of the time.

We have had a visit to our class by hospital staff in order to help the students understand this disease and the treatment (name) will be getting to make her/him well. The video "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?" was shown and followed by time for questions and answers. Some of the important things the students learned were:

• Cancer is not contagious.
• It is not anyone's fault when a person gets cancer; doctors do not know what causes it, but childhood cancers are now very treatable.
• Chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy are used to destroy the cancer cells; some of the good cells also get destroyed and therefore there can be side effects such as hair loss, weight gain or loss, fatigue, and lowered resistance to infections.
• ________ is still the same person s/he was before s/he got sick and wants to be treated the same.

Please encourage your child to share any questions or concerns with you. Ask them to be sensitive to how it feels to come to school after being sick. Help them to think of ways to help __________ feel included and back to normal.

Sincerely,

(Classroom Teacher)

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