School nurses play an important role in public health, serving on the front lines for school-aged children every day. Nurses are important not only because kids get sick — but especially because they do.
Why, then, are nurses going by the wayside?
School nurses don’t just apply Band-Aids and call parents to pick up their febrile children anymore.
“It seems the shortage is primarily a result of budget cuts and not a lack of qualified professionals,” said Daniel Levine, director of the Avant-Guide Institute, a trends consulting company based in New York City. Levine has a particular interest in the trend: His own sister has served as a school nurse for decades.
School district budgeting has created difficult choices for educators. As funding for schools has dwindled, so have the nurses. With “less than half of the country’s public schools” employing full-time nurses, the bottom line is often one nurse per 4,000 students, U.S. News and World Report reported in March of this year.
One full-time registered nurse in every school, at a minimum, is what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends in its most recent policy statement in the 2016 issue of Pediatrics.
“You can make a health argument, a social argument, and a financial argument that the school nursing shortage is not getting the attention from the public it should,” Levine told LifeZette.
Educators already stretched thin are feeling the pressure. They’re often now managing health issues for a school and with it, a long list of responsibilities and work that isn’t easy — even for a nurse. School nurses don’t just apply Band-Aids and call parents to pick up their febrile children anymore.
- States facing the highest shortages with 3001+ students per school nurse include Oklahoma, Montana, Oregon, Michigan and Utah. Hawaii does not have school RNs.
Emergent life-threatening situations that require a rapid response occur on a regular basis. Asthma, anaphylaxis, food allergies, seizure disorders, type 1 diabetes, mental health, physical safety, and injuries are increasingly becoming the responsibility of school staff.
The National Association of School Nurses is calling for improved standards, seeking to ensure that “every child has access all day, every day to a full-time registered professional school nurse.”
Caring for the “whole child” at school is a must, health officials say, or we are failing the students. Parents should not be asking permission nor apologizing for their children’s unique needs that are protected under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 in Section 504. Nor should children ever face discrimination because of a disability; the care is not optional.
“In all schools, but especially ones without nurses, it is extremely important for parents to set up a 504 plan with school administration before the school year,” said Peter Ferry, development manager of the Desert Southwest Chapter of JDRF.
The state of Arizona has one school nurse per 1,217 students on average, according to the National Education Association.
Many parents, desperate to maintain a semblance of normalcy for their children, are increasingly taking the lead role on their child’s medical needs at school, he told LifeZette.
“In fourth grade my daughter had no school nurse,” said Kristi Corsaro Pahnke, a parent of a child living with type 1 diabetes in Arizona. “I spent a lot of time at the school then. The staff was very hesitant to be trained on her daily care or on the use of Glucagon [her life-saving emergency medication]. If she ever had a low or high, I would be immediately called to come to the school and handle it myself,” she added.
The state of Arizona has one school nurse per 1,217 students on average, according to the National Education Association. Closing the gap is a complicated process and one districts are struggling to solve.
Kathleen Hebbeler, of SRI International, an international nonprofit research center that serves government and industry, suggests special health care needs must be identified through data collection. Standards must be created for those who are qualified to participate in children’s medical care at school.
Or perhaps schools nationwide follow Michigan's lead with The NURSE Act — legislation supported by the National Association of School Nurses to keep nursing positions filled across their school districts.
School nursing dates back to 1902 for a reason — it is not a disposable commodity. Health care, and its mode of delivery, impacts every single student.
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