BELLE VERNON, Pa. —  A Belle Vernon, Pa., woman was charged with endangering her children after she sent them to school with lice despite warnings that they could not attend class until they had been cleaned up, police said.

Twenty-seven-year-old Nicole Lynn Holmes was sent to jail to await a preliminary hearing on Friday, according to police.

The Belle Vernon Area School District contacted police, charging that Holmes had ignored several warnings about the children's lice infestation, court records show.

School officials told police the problem first arose in early February, when Holmes was told that she must take her children to a doctor and resolve the lice issue before they could return to school. But later that month, the children, and their lice, boarded a bus and headed to school, police said.

Officials at Marion Elementary School contacted Holmes and demanded she pick up her children so they would not expose others to their lice, said the officials. She refused, according to the officials.