Get Schooled

By Kyle

December 19, 2005 08:13 AM | Link to this

How many school taxpayers in Fulton County are aware that the Fulton Co. School System spends more per student for social workers than school nurses? Fulton Co. School System also spends more per student for Psychologists than school nurses.

By Tony

December 19, 2005 09:30 AM | Link to this

School nurses provide valuable services to all children and families in a variety of ways. The obvious has been stated already by Patti. There are many children enrolled in schools with different health concerns. Having an expert to advise school personnel is crucial to being able to meet the educational needs of these students. Acting as a liaison with doctors and families, the nurse is able to coordinate the medical issues with teachers.

In our school, the nurse is shared with two other schools. This seems to work well since the schools are in close proximity. The cost involved with staffing a nurse in each school would be too expensive. Patti asked who should pay, but the bottom line is that taxpayers will pay the bill from one pot or another. For school systems to foot the bill would mean taking away funds from classrooms, specifically teacher personnel. This is not a good option.

By Kathleen

December 19, 2005 09:43 AM | Link to this

Nurses are definitely needed in the school system. The problem is that the need for nurses in the school system does not affect test scores, therefore it’s not a priority. It’s like the necessary red light at the dangerous intersection. It’s not put in place until something tragic happens.

By Mary

December 19, 2005 11:19 AM | Link to this

If the nurses’ pay would have to come out of the same fund that pays teachers (therefore lowering my pay), then, no - we don’t need school nurses.

If your kids are that ill - keep them at home.

By Sarah

December 19, 2005 11:23 AM | Link to this

I think the money would be better spent hiring more police officers for the schools. We have one officer at our high school who has to handle the entire cluster. If we continue to allow these thugs to come back to school after they bring guns, knives, fight, etc. - we need more officers, not nurses.

By Kage

December 19, 2005 11:56 AM | Link to this

From what I understand, litigious concerns have hampered nurses’ abilties to do their jobs in schools anymore. In our district, nurses cannot remove splinters, take temperatures, make diagnoses, etc. If they were allowed to act as nurses, I would be all for them being in our schools. As it stands, though, I think the money is better spent elsewhere.

By Kathleen

December 19, 2005 12:33 PM | Link to this

Mary, You obviously haven’t been a teacher for very long and if you have, you are lacking in compassion and understanding. As a school nurse, I have sacrificed a decent salary so that I may be home when my kids are home. I understand that and accept the lower salary. I am the first to encourage parents to keep their children home when they’re sick, but what about the students with diabetes, asthma, epilepsy or anyother situation that might require proper medical attention? Do you think that they should be homeschooled? Or are you comfortable making decision about their care?

By Mike

December 19, 2005 12:39 PM | Link to this

School Boards are barely competant at educating children & definitely should not be branching out in their scope of services offered. Also, having full-time nurses available at the schools would only further encourage slackard parents to "dump" more of their child rearing responsibilites on the school. They'll just go ahead & send their kids to school sick & let someone else deal with the problem.

By Mary

December 19, 2005 01:25 PM | Link to this

Kathleen - I have been teaching for a long enough time to make the assessment that we don’t need a school nurse at my high school. If the student is asthmatic or diabetic, he/she should know how to help him/herself by this time. We have First Responders at the school for emergencies - so I really cannot justify spending the money for someone to just sit there and wait for someone to get sick.

I’m tired of babysitting for the kids who are well and just come to school because their parents don’t want to leave them in the house with their valuables; I definitely don’t want to provide babysitting services for a sick teenager.

By Ernest

December 19, 2005 01:44 PM | Link to this

The ‘socially compassionate’ side in me says I want school nurses. The ‘fically responsible’ side in me asks, ‘How will we pay for them’. I have to agree with Kathleen’s statement that having school nurses does not significantly impact instruction. This is what our schools are measured on, unfortunately not the collective health of the students. Like Sarah said, having security/police officers would probably impact instruction more, to help keep a safe and orderly environment. Heck, this is a measure that says a lot about a school.

If someone could offer ideas how to pay for school nurse within the existing budgets, I’m all ears. Obviously, that means something/someone would be cut.

By Kathleen

December 19, 2005 02:25 PM | Link to this

Situations arise where it is imperative to have a nurse on staff. Secretaries, teachers, bookkeepers or parapros administering medication is an accident waiting to happen. I wonder if Mary’s “First Responders” are true EMTs or Paramedics or are they teachers that have taken a 1st Aid class? I have averaged 5000+ clinic visits each year for the past two years. I assure you that I’m not just sitting around waiting for students to come visit. I provide a variety of services to both students and faculty. To have a licensed nurse assess a student and handle a medical situation frees up the teacher, therefore giving them time to do what they’re hired for, to teach.

By MamaS

December 19, 2005 02:27 PM | Link to this

The school nurses in Henry County Schools do an incredible job! They take temps, administer meds, measure sugar levels in diabetics, handle seizures, recognize and refer for treatment ringworm, headlice, pinkeye, strep, toothache and broken bones. They contact parents and have sick children picked up. They are also frequently the first to know when a cut or bruise is “abuse” rather than “accident”. In my son’s school the school nurse treated a case of electricution when a janitor’s ladder fell against a live wire while he was changing a light bulb. Without her, he could have died. So yes, I say we need a certified nurse — full time — in every elementary school.

By Mary

December 19, 2005 02:31 PM | Link to this

Kathleen - do you work primarily in an elementary school or a high school? I assure you - a school nurse in my high school would give out bandaids and tampons more often that actually administering real medical help!

By Kathleen

December 19, 2005 02:57 PM | Link to this

I am the school nurse at a middle school with 900 students. My position is primarily funded from “tobacco money.” I’ve been in the system for 5 years and repeatedly hear from board members, administrators, teachers, parents and students they don’t know how we ever did it without school nurses. I feel like a part of the team and I don’t think there are any teachers in my school that think like some of the previous bloggers.

By Leia

December 19, 2005 03:11 PM | Link to this

Kathleen - what is “tobacco money”?

By Taxpayer

December 19, 2005 03:26 PM | Link to this

Money earmarked for providing a school nurse is already being misspent in some schools. In my district’s elementary school, the “school nurse” is a former school secretary whose position was phased out. She was given the job of school nurse because she is a friend of the principal, who did not want to fire her. She has as much medical training as I do — NONE. I don’t know if every school needs a school nurse, but by golly, if a school has a school nurse, he/she should actually have a nursing degree!

By Leia

December 19, 2005 03:57 PM | Link to this

Taxpayer - Amen!!

By Kathleen

December 19, 2005 04:07 PM | Link to this

“Tobacco money” is the settlement money from 6+ years ago that Gov. Barnes directed for the placement of school nurses. I hear that some of it may have been misused but that is not the case in my county. A nurse is a nurse. I certainly hope that she’s not misrepresenting herself. If so, that sounds like the potential for a legal mess that the county would need to explain. PTO actually paid the salary for a “clinic mom” before I started. She was great with the kids, but had a limited knowledge base when it came to medications and medical problems.

By Taxpayer

December 19, 2005 04:18 PM | Link to this

Kathleen, you raise good points about legal issues involving clinic workers who are not really nurses. I can add that PTAs/PTOs should be careful when they take on the responsibility of hiring and paying school personnel. The groups and individual members can be held liable for the employee’s misconduct or be sued by the employee. County administration should do the hiring, but I have no idea how Ms. Not-a-Nurse managed to slip past the administration for our county. All in who you know, I guess …

By luvs2teach

December 19, 2005 04:56 PM | Link to this

I think the school nurse is a valuable position, and in many schools does more than you might think. I have an epileptic stuent and a highly allergic one (has to carry an epi-pen for a multitude of things). Despite being well-versed in First Aid, I’m glad I have a real medical professional here to make the call.

As far as funding, I think that public heath money should fund part of the salary and that the nurse;s job should be expanded to other areas of public health.

When I was a kid, the school nurse did height and weight checks, lice checks, scoliosis screening, hearing and vision screening, as well as some vaccinations. Now PE teachers do scoliosis screening, parent volunteers conduct hearing and vision tests, height, weight and vaccinations are never done.

I felt better when I knew my kids had a real nurse as opposed to just a clinic mom.

By Laura

December 19, 2005 05:03 PM | Link to this

With inclusion/mainstreaming, I think we need a FT nurse in every school. There are kids in school who need to be tube-fed (at least we’ve had at least 1 or 2 in our neighborhood school every year). The school district should pay for it.

(My son is in a private school now that has a FT nurse and sub nurses for when the regular nurse has to be out sick or whatever.)

By Lloyd

December 20, 2005 09:32 AM | Link to this

I work at the Epilepsy Foundation, and interact with schools and school nurses on an everyday basis. I can assure you that school nurses play a vital role in the safety and health of our children. One in every 50 children have epilepsy and 1 in 3 children with developmental disabilities (i.e. CP, autism) have seizures.The incidence rate for both asthma and diabetes are even higher. Teachers and front office personnel simply are not trained to handle these potentially life threatening events.I cover schools throughout the state and I can tell you in the rural areas the school nurse is odften the only medical professional a child may see due to lack of physicians and hospitals in the rural areas.

School nurses are not sitting arround just handing out aspirin and patting a child on the head. They are monitoring sugar levels, administering diastat (any of you know what that is… I am sure you would not want a non-professional adminstering that!) and handling possible victims of school violence. In return for their effortd, school nurses get low pay, very poor benefits, and often have to cover multiple schools. I think the families of kids with chronic illness are very thankful that school nurses exist. If, as one writer says stay home if you are sick, then these children would never get an education.Is that what you really want?, because a person without an education is going to be the person on the public dole in the future.

School nurses rule!

By HS Science

December 20, 2005 02:43 PM | Link to this

Full time nurses are needed. So far this year I’ve had one student go into a seizure outside of my room as well as in my room and one go into a diabetic shock. These three all occurred on the day that the nurse was not at school. Last week a pregnat young lady collasped in the bathroom across from my room, also when the nurse was not in.

To complicate such situations, as teachers and administrators we are asked to stop and consider the possible legal aspects when emergencies occur. Even though there are five teachers certified for CPR and two of us certified for emergency First Aide on my hall of 10 rooms, we are to clear it with the office before we aide a student.

When the pregnat young lady collasped and three ambulances and one fire rescue unit arrived before we could even get her down the hall, a search for cell phones was immediately done and dozens of cell phones were taken up. You see, the school had to pay for the ambulances. Yes, cell phones are not allowed, but the students that called were concerned.

While it is true that many parents send their children to school so that they can go to the nurse instead of a doctor, our nurse can barely get a breath on the two days that she is at the school. I didn’t have one class last semester without less than four students on 504’s, one class had eleven out of twenty-seven. I had three students with Lupus.

In that school is mandatory, the nurses should be funded through the state healt department. We can’t deny these sick students an education yet we face the questions of what to do in emergencies. Our school was struck by the tradgedy of a young man falling out in gym and passing away before help arrived (once again, the nurse was not in). The system thinks that the having the nurse between our high school the middle school next door and the elementary school three blocks away is adequate coverage. It isn’t.