School Nurses: Professional Staff or Support Staff?

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

For those of you who have a Bachelors degree and work in a school district, are you considered "professional staff" (on par with Bachelors prepared educators) or support staff, some of whom are Bachelors prepared but many who are not (i.e. paraprofesisionals/secretarial staff)?

We seem to fall in between where I work and not all of us have BSN. i am looking at the perception by your administration/schoolboard.

Thx

[hsnurse1]

I have a BSN and I am not on pay scale or even considered "certified" in my district. I am in the same classification as aides, janitors, cafeteria workers, etc. I came into my district with 6 years experience in nursing and my starting salary was pretty close to the starting salary of a teacher. However, I am not on the same scale for raises. I will get about half of what they get each year that we get a raise.

[Britrn04, BSN, MSN, RN]

I have a BSN and am considered support staff. The above post from "nursectg" is so strikingly similar, we could be in the same district!!! It is disappointing to not be recognized as professional staff!

[Jolie, BSN]

Neither. Nurses in our district are consultants, not employees. We work for an agency that signs a yearly contract with the school district. Our hours, wages and benefits are determined by the agency. Some of the nurses work for more than one division of the agency in order to qualify for full-time status. Most are part-time employees, working only within the school division.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

In my state, school nurses in public schools are considered on-par with teachers, are compensated according to the teachers' pay scale and are represented by the teachers' union.

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

We are on the the same pay scale but do not have union representation...they were approached years ago but did not want to include us. I was not part of that conversation. We get a contract that outines out bennies (insurance, retirement, salary) but it is very consolidated (not included is all the wording from the collective bargaining agreement.) When our status is discussed, the pat answer seems to be, you are not in the union so you are not necessarily professional staff.....makes me scrach my head that I have a BSN and a MS yet a first year teacher with no experience is considered more professional than I.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Same here - professional staff on-par with teachers and their salary ladder based on degree and years of experience as a nurse.

Not part of the union however and for that I'm happy. One of the prior nurses negotiated that as part of her contract - to not be in the teacher's union.

We are given a temporary teaching credential by the state and have 5 years to get a real one.

One thing I have to decide is should I go into further school debt for this????

[100kids, BSN, RN]

I have a BSN but I am defintely seen as support staff here.

[sfajctxnurse]

I am an LVN and in our district, they don't even list as as LVN's, they have us listed as "health care specialist" That is our job title. This bugs me a little bit. I'm not sure if our BSN or RN's in our district have the same pay scale as teachers, since I am a LVN, we have a different pay scale. I am definitely seen as support staff.

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

I am on the same track as teachers so when I got my Masters I did get a (Bachelor + 36) pay bump but we are not guarenteed anything and there seems to now be some waffling on the part of admin as to our role....the nurse who recently retired after 30+ years was not eligble for early retirement "you are not part of the union"...can be confusing...now the ? is do we petition the union for inclusion? Not sure how I feel about that

[Songbird,RN]

Our retirement with our district seems to be the same as the teachers. And we got a very small raise this year, I think 2%. Our district calls us support staff and treats us as that. New nurses are not introduced at the first of the year, nor included at the first of the year staff pictures. It hurts, to say the least, but I guess we are used to it at this point. We tend to be a very tight knit group of nurses in our district and we have a manager who we believe has our interests at heart! In my building, I am treated with kindness and respect for the professional that I am. This makes up for the other "stuff". I am happy to be a school nurse because of the students I help here. I practice in a very poor district and these kids need some TLC! AND, I love my summers off with my kids and grandkids.

[Nurse ABC]

We are paid exactly as if we were a teacher and also expected to have our school certification renewed every five yrs like the teachers are by taking six credit hours to do it plus keep our nursing license up to date. However, treated by some of the teachers as if we were an aide hired to do their bidding which is annoying.