School Nurse

Yes, Pam, it is a very disturbing situation. I do not see how they can possibly cut the speech therapist. Speech services fall under IDEA. Unless, they are thinking they can contract out and somehow save money.

Very simply put, the fact is we cannot raise test scores and outcomes for students if our class sizes and caseloads increase.

I have been watching this for several years now. Here in CA we have had mandates that predate NCLB that our test scores increase each year. I guess the idea is that 100% of our students will untimately be proficient at grade level in all areas. Since we know this will NEVER happen in the best of situations, I am waiting to see what will happen when we hit a ceiling at my site. We can knuckle down and raise scores for a few years, but in time we will top out.

It is a little like (I like analogies) setting a speed and insisting that everyone run the mile at that speed. If you set the bar low enough, you will get most people up to that speed. You may never get ALL people to that speed because physically handicapped persons will never be able. Only in CA we have set the bar pretty high, based on our standards. Achieving these standards on a shoestring budget is a pipe dream.

We not only need teachable classes, frankly we need more time to reteach the students who are not able to learn at the pace the standards set. The school day is not long enough, nor is the school year. All of this will take money, but where is the money?

In my resource program I can make good progress when my caseload is small enough to deliver enough intensive instruction to my students. When my caseload becomes too large and diverse, my time is further divided across more students and a greater number of needs. Each student gets less of me which usually translates into less progress.

There is a direct relationship in my program to student progress and caseload Creating more manageable caseloads takes more money, but the money is not there, so we continue to slog along under the whip, trying to maximize each moment of each day.

Another CA parent here—unless your child needs medical help at school, I would not fight about a school nurse. I would be concerned about the speech therapist—as that should be part of your child’s iep, if needed. My children have never had a school nurse in their buildings. The school nurses come around once a year and check immunization records. period. If the injury can’t be solved with an icepack, either the parents or 911 is called.
good luck.

Amen to Anitya and in CA I say what school nurse? We are lucky if we have a part time district nurse. For many years our school district had no school nurse.
In the elementry schools there is no librarian just a paid aid for maybe 12 hours a week paid from a mom-profit fund created by parents to pay for the extras in the district. Without this fund it would be just the teachers (who are great) and none of the frills and we are a wealthy community.

Helen

The reason for my concern with the school nurse is that my child has a Congenital Heart Defect. Are the Teachers in your school trained in CPR?

Another issure regarding no school nuse is that our town only has Two payed emt’s on call , all the rest are volenteer and working during the day.

Pam,

Does your child have a Health Plan? A Health Plan spells out in detail what should be done when a health concern occurs. I could get you some web sites to go to from a friend if you would like them. The Heath Plan would give you some insurance that health concern will be taken care of. If the Health Plan requires a trained person to be on site then the the person needs to be there.

Helen

There are NO kids with asthma, or diabetes, life threatening allergies or seizure disorders in your school?

I wouldn’t want an SLP cut either, but I don’t know how a school of more than a handful of students can function without a nurse.

Karen

Most of the schools I have taught in had no nurse. Most of the schools my daughter attended had no nurse. Some of these were in Canada and some in the US, some urban, and some *extremely* rural and isolated — forty miles over dirt road (impassable in wet weather) to the hospital; or over 100 miles to the hospital. In the forty-mile dirt road situation, I had a five-year-old in my class who was seriously diabetic — two insulin shots per day — *and* severely allergic to bees. At the beginning of the year someone told me about her health problems and they gave me an epi-pen to keep in my desk in case she got stung (very likely in a rural area.) I discovered for myself that she had to have her snack earlier than the other kids, at 10, because the high early morning dose of insulin hit too hard. Luckily I have fairtly thorough first-aid training, having been a ski patroller — but it wasn’t a job requirement. I assume that parents do a lot of praying.

Sounds very frightening to me! In our school system, teachers won’t even TOUCH meds. You have to fight with the school to let them allow your asthmatic child to keep an inhaler on their person.

For the first year or two my 6th grader was in school, if his asthma was bad enough that he needed to be nebulized during the school day, I had to go to school and do it. After that, I guess they had enough kids needing it, that the nurse not only has a nebulizer (parents supply the set-up and meds) but a pulse oximeter. I guess that that the nurses were having too much trouble assessing kids based on respirations, retractions and peak flow. I’m not sure that a school really needs a pulse ox, and parents could be expected to supply a nebulizer if the kid really needs it and the district can’t afford it. But it takes some expertise to assess the condition of a kid with asthma. It seems like a huge responsibility for teachers to manage.

In our school system, even on field trip, if there’s a child on the trip who has any serious medical condition, a nurse goes too. We have a staff nurse in each of our schools, and then a “floater” who covers for a nurse who is out sick, or off-site duties.

Karen

None of the FL schools have them, unless they get a special grant or something. I don’t think it is a good idea either but it is just a fact of life.

Beth