They do much more than offer damp paper towels for kids’ booboos
By Deborah Jeanne Sergeant
While your children are at school, the school nurse oversees their healthcare needs. It’s much more than treating knees scraped on the playground. School nurses often serve as a boots-on-the-ground medical watchdog for families.
“They are medical providers’ go-to to provide data and information,” said Steven Schulz, pediatrician with Rochester Regional Health.
For this reason, University of Rochester and Rochester Regional Health, along with mental health providers in the region, are working toward establishing a coordinated network through Connect for Kids that will create a more seamless approach to providing for children’s physical and mental healthcare.
Schulz hopes that the network will improve collaboration and communication among families and providers and added that parental consent and involvement will continue to be an essential part of the relationship among all parties.
Schulz also said that school nurses keep track of mandated childhood vaccines and can often serve as the first to identify if children have anxiety or a learning issue when students continually present to their office with symptoms such as an upset stomach.
“School nurses are a great resource for parents and kids,” Schulz said.
In some school districts, school nurses provide health, vision and hearing screenings; routine vaccinations; and basic primary care at health clinics on school grounds, according to Whitney B. Jackson, registered nurse and clinical assistant professor in the Nursing Department at Nazareth University.
But “a lot of what they do is the things you’d remember: giving Band-Aids and ice packs,” Jackson said. “They do a lot of documentation and tracking for physicals, vaccine status based on New York state requirements, track medications that the school holds for the students. There’s a lot they track behind the scenes.”
For some school districts, the school nurse may attend field trips to meet the needs of children with allergies and other chronic health issues. Some school nurses participate in teaching health classes.
“The biggest thing they do is form positive relationships with kids at all ages,” Jackson said. “Starting at young ages, children may be scared. If they don’t see the same provider, they may not have positive experiences. The school nurse is the smiling face who can help form positive relationships that can carry them for years to come.”
Establishing a positive association with healthcare providers can help students form a lifelong adherence to preventive healthcare guidelines such as seeking annual physicals and age-appropriate screening.
Some school nurses work only during school months; others work year-round positions. Jackson said that many schools seek nurses to fill in as substitutes as well, paying by the hour, day or at a flat rate.
Working as a school nurse offers many advantages over bedside nursing, including first shift hours — no nights or weekends or 14-hour shifts — and a schedule that mimics that of their school-aged children.
“That’s a big piece of it for people with families,” Jackson said. “You get to go home at the same time and eat dinner together.”
School nurses also get holidays and school breaks off, which eases childcare expenses.
The payrate is a little less than that of bedside nurses but since they are part of the state system, they receive pensions and benefits similar to that of teachers.
Many find that the work itself is rewarding as they get to see “their” kids in the school grow up.
“School nurses have the opportunity to be the safe space for kids during a busy school day,” Jackson said. “A lot of changes happen to kids as they grow up and sometimes they need that quiet corner in the nurse’s office to regroup. With bedside nursing, the tasks pile up so it’s hard to give that one-on-one invested relationship and rapport with your patient.”
According to salary.com, school nurses in the Rochester area earn an average annual salary of approximately $61,000, compared with bedside nurses who make $76,500. The experience and level of education affects these figures.