Jersey Jazzman documents a crucial shortage in school nurses, who serve multiple roles in protecting the health of children in school.
He writes:
As the coronavirus threat increases in the United States, policymakers are assessing our nation’s capacity to handle a pandemic. One of our first lines of defense — and one I’ve yet to see discussed — is our school nursing workforce.
Ask anyone who has worked for a while in a school, and they will tell you how valuable it is to have a good nurse on staff. This is because school nurses do a lot more than put bandaids on boo-boos. They are, in many cases, a primary healthcare provider for school-aged children. They disseminate information to staff, students, and families. They monitor the health of school buildings and ensure employees and students follow good sanitary practices. They administer medicines to younger students who need supervision. They provide vision, hearing, and dental screenings. They are first responders in emergencies, and the liaison between trauma care providers and the school.
And, as I’ve seen time and again in my career, they are often the first adult a child trusts when that child is in crisis. Countless tragedies have been avoided because a school nurse was there to hear a student’s cries for help.
In the face of the looming coronavirus threat, I think we need to take a minute and ask about the current state of our school nurse workforce. Luckily, there is a very good paper from 2018 that conducted a survey on school nurses. Surveys like these are tough for a variety of reasons, but my read of the paper is that this is a high-quality piece of research that aligns with previous work on the topic. [At this point, he inserts graphs, which you should see by opening his post].
One in five American schools has no nursing coverage. And another one in five has less than full-time coverage. The breakdown by region suggests to me that part of the issue is that we’ve got a lot of rural schools in the West that are probably too small to be able to sustain a full-time nurse. That said, you’d think these schools would find a way to share nurses so they’d get at least part-time coverage. But the data suggest a lot of schools can’t make this work….
The breakdown by urban/rural supports this idea: 17 percent of urban schools have no nursing coverage, while 30 percent of rural schools have no coverage. Still: how did we get to a place where one in six urban schools have no nurses?
Reviewing the data, he finds that 37% of American schools do not have a full-time nurse. Especially at a time like the present, this is unacceptable.
Education Week writes about the nation’s shortage of school nurses, who are critical every day, but especially now in the midst of a global pandemic.
School nurses have a critical role to play as schools grapple with responding to coronavirus.
They can advise district leaders on how best to communicate key information from health authorities to their school communities. They can oversee their school’s tactics for limiting the spread of the virus, through handwashing demonstrations and talking to parents. And their health expertise can help administrators make important decisions about limiting large group gatherings or ramping up cleaning schedules.
But not every school has a full time nurse—or any type of dedicated health professional—to lean on. Almost 25 percent of schools have no nurse all, according to a 2016 workforce study by the National Association of School Nurses. Nearly 40 percent of schools employed full-time nurses, while 35 percent had part-time nurses, the study found.
School nurses do so much more to protect children. After Philadelphia reduced the number of school nurses to cut the budget, at least two children died in schools that had limited nurse coverage after Republican Governor Corbett cut $1 billion of the city’s school budget, forcing the city to lay off 4,000 staff, including reducing the number of nurses from 289 to 179. One child died of an asthma attack in a school where the nurse was available only two days a week, and the nurse was not at the school on that day. School nurses in that city recently protested the cutbacks and the interference of unlicensed administrators; the school system did not replace its sole physician. The Pennsylvania Legislature barred the exclusion of unvaccinated children from school.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
For YEARS, Diane Ravtich has been decrying the lack of nurses in our schools, and she has pretty much been ignored about this.
Well, here’s One of the Many reasons why we need them.
Kill the standardized tests. Hire nurses and build theaters.
We used to have vision and hearing screening in schools. Now .. NOTHING.
We sure do need School Nurses. They add VALUE.
They are the frontline, there to deal with emergencies that can’t wait for a paramedic and to do this kind of screening. Does this teacher or child need to go home to stop this spreading through the school?
When I was a kid, if someone had suggested that we do without a school nurse, others would have considered that person insane.
Yes, Yvonne, I remember now that the school nurse screened for vision and hearing. I had forgotten that from long ago.
The school nurses were first responders.
20% of USA public schools do not have a nurse, but 100% of the 10 yachts Betsy DeVos owns are properly staffed.
Dont’ ya love America?!!!
A very on-target article I read years ago when the nation had just started up its increasingly vicious test-and-blame agenda recognized that a notable percent of kids were not doing well in school simply due to a need for glasses. We NEVER addressed that reality….over time our district simply took money for screenings and shoved it toward more testing.
Makes sense bring in more mental health practitioners too
Anyone wanna bet? Disrupters’ children’s schools all have/had nurses. They just don’t want one for your child’s school.
Exactly, Ms. Ranch. Mitch McConnell just announced that he will block any legislation to provide sick leave to workers generally. The same sort of thing.
Nurses are indispensable for public schools. When I taught, every school had its own full time dedicated (in every sense of that word) nurse and thank goodness for that. The nurses did all kinds of screenings, even scoliosis screenings, they administered the medications that some of the kids were taking and were always there in case of emergencies. It amounts to malfeasance to not have full time nurses for all the schools.
I worked with poor immigrants. Some students from developing nations arrived with tuberculosis. The school nurse set up appointments for students at the chest clinic. She acted as a case manager making sure students went to their appointments, and she tracked their progress. School nurses are important to the health and well-being of the entire school community.
In the past hour we learned that Duval schools—and most, if not all—will be closed next week. This puts a real strain on the all-important testing schedule. Am hopeful that the FL legislature & DoE will finally look at the 80% and reconsider priorities instead of just the 20% charter & voucher students. A nurse, please? Perhaps some hand sanitizer & wipes? The disruption of testing, which drives school grades, graduation requirements & VAM scores, is big. THIS kind of disruption is needed to address the real needs of schools, such as nurses.
They cancelled the SATs at the Western New York sites. Plus if they close the schools, when will those “assessments” occur. How will they label those “failing” schools?
If there isn’t a school nurse, the Secretary in the office is in charge. The Buffalo Public Schools had a few kids die due to the lack of professional help. There used to be clinics with both a doctor and nurse who treated entire low income families. Too expensive. Now nurses are provided by Erie County at a much cheaper cost than a nurse put on a step along with the rest of the teachers, but at least they are available (although I’m uncertain if they are full time). My suburban school district has full time nurses,