Untreated, ear infections can lead to more serious complications, including mastoiditis (a rare inflammation of a bone adjacent to the ear), hearing loss, perforation of the eardrum, meningitis, facial nerve paralysis, and possibly -- in adults -- Meniere's disease.
DHEC publishes the School and Childcare Exclusion List each year. The Exclusion List explains how long an ill child, student, school employee, or childcare employee should stay out of school or childcare, and what is needed before the child/student or employee is permitted to return.
To say that a child who does not want to go to school has school refusal is pseudo-scientific babble-no better than a form of quackery. School refusal is not an illness, it is what normal children sometimes do. Refusing to go to school can also be a sign of a problem.