School nurses out there?

[minkydog]

My son's principal asked me this week if i had thought about becoming a school nurse. I really had not, but I think I'd be good at it. I've been a peds nurse for a long time and i love the education/community health aspect of my current job.

Tell me, what do you see as the pros and cons of school nursing?

 

[XYSRUS]

Go to allnurses dot com and search there. I sub for the school nurses. Just a good way to get to know your community. Pay is nothing like you're used to...check out subbing first, and then go from there.

 

[Kitty 34]

My friend is our school nurse/parapro and loves it but doesn't get paid as much as me, who subs. And I don't get paid much so we're certainly not in it for the $$!

 

[golfgal]

-A good friend of mine is the school nurse at our kids' old school. She makes $40,000 working from 9-2 M-F, not too bad. Mostly what she does is put bandaids on scrapes, hands out meds and tries to decide if kids are sick enough to go home or not. It isn't all that exciting of a job and at times it can be dull but for the convenience of having the days off with her kids, etc. she loves the job.

 

[Cindy B]

I asked a few nurses why they went into school nursing. They said they did their time with overnights, weekends and crazy shifts. They liked the stability of a certain time/certain hours and summers off.

Not only did they do cuts, bruises, but sometimes they did more complex stuff. Two students I know (one in elementary/one in middle) have feeding tubes. Some students in all grade levels have wheelchairs, so for some students it is a bathroom issue. Some students do to the severity of their illness have a personal nurse. One student I know had a severe seizure type situation, and one needed a specific monitor for blood sugar/diabetes every few hours. Some school nurses have to go to field trips to administer kids afternoon meds.

If there is an overnight trip--upper grades have them-- the school nurse attends if there is a student that needs meds throughout the day.

And if you are in upper elementary/middle you have the issue of girls and menstruation. That happened a lot in my middle school--. Middle school also had girls fainting during gym class because they didn't eat for two days---wanted to fit in bat mitzvah dresses! There are pregnancy issues as well occasionally. Male students have issues as well--sometimes steroid use for the athletes. All around concern in the middle high school arena is drug use/alocholism. Some kids would just be stoned or drunk in class!

 

[Hannathy]

I have often though about doing that but in my state their are so many rules that it isn't worth it. Here you have to be certified which is several college courses over your BSN, I even have a BS in Elem.ED and I need them. Then you need your cert. from the state which is more money. And on top of this there just aren't that many openings. Most of the nurses who do this say that 75% of the job is paper work and phone calls. Most of our nurses work 2-4 schools so they see the kids very little.
Our nurses don't go on over night trips either.
If you are getting into a parochial school there may be less certification need but that is what is holding me back, that and the lack of openings. Good luck if you pursue it.

 

[golfgal]

I have often though about doing that but in my state their are so many rules that it isn't worth it. Here you have to be certified which is several college courses over your BSN, I even have a BS in Elem.ED and I need them. Then you need your cert. from the state which is more money. And on top of this there just aren't that many openings. Most of the nurses who do this say that 75% of the job is paper work and phone calls. Most of our nurses work 2-4 schools so they see the kids very little.
Our nurses don't go on over night trips either.
If you are getting into a parochial school there may be less certification need but that is what is holding me back, that and the lack of openings. Good luck if you pursue it.

In our state the school nurses are employed by the public schools and assigned to what ever school which includes any private schools in the district. My friend was an employee of the public schools, paid through the public schools but the school she worked at was the Catholic school.