Asking me to go against policy

Specialties School

Published

  1. Sped Teachers be allowed to assess/send home their students without Health office input?

    • 1
      YES-they know students
    • 38
      NO- it's Health Office job
    • 9
      Maybe- depends on situation

46 members have participated

I will try to make this short...

In a nut shell, Special ED director sent me an email asking that the Special ED teacher, be able to send her special needs students home without question. SpecED teacher was annoyed at my assessment of NO fever, and annoyed I called parent to say child had No fever. She wants all ability to override me, but GET THIS- they still want the students to come to the health office, and ME to call parent for child to go home without me even looking/assessing anything!:no:

I pulled rank, and said NOT Gonna Happen.

Waiting on my supervisor/Principle to comment on email.

Specializes in School Nursing.

I actually broke out in Hives on my chest for being so upset with the rude behavior of the Aide and the teacher hanging up on me. Yes, I do believe the teacher sends the kids home because she doesn't want to deal with it. I had 2 more of her kids come up that morning before she tried to send this student. Yes again on the down syndrome students. Parent told me, the student has thick mucus and she will gag/spit it up. Teacher would not take that as an answer, and told me the student vomited everywhere and needed to go home. Aide told me she had mucus come up only, and no actual vomit. Just really sad

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Specializes in ED, psych.

Well then ...

The SPED director and teacher can call a PPT with the parents and let them know this "new policy." I'm sure that would go over well -- NOT!

Seriously, if it ain't in the IEP, it doesn't happen.

Children with special needs can manifest illness in different ways (i.e. increase in self injurious behaviors). But those behaviors are usually well established between the teacher AND the nurse. I'd note that my 7 year old kiddo with autism has been teary and biting his arm for the last hour across a variety of conditions/settings, and it's something I'd let the nurse know as a heads up.

I've also had students in the past that had things written into their IEPs that were health related, such as my seizure prone 5-year-old gal who tended to have her seizures late at night and early into the morning hours ... thus allowing her to come in late (10am instead of 8am so she could sleep in).

The thing is, it was TEAM approved. Parents were in on it. Administration was in on it. Teacher and aides, in on it. The nurse was sure as hell in on it.

That SPED "team?" Freakin unacceptable. As a parent, I'd be ticked. As a former teacher, I'm infuriated. Disgusting.

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Specializes in med-surg, IMC, school nursing, NICU.

I have had a SpEd teacher come into my office and say "If (insert SpEd student name here) does _________ again, you need to call mom."

Um. No I do not. Sorry that his behaviors are inconvenient for you but I am not sending a student who isn't sick home from school. If you want him to leave, YOU can call mom.

Some days I wonder why they even hired me. And those days are getting closer together.

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Specializes in Cardiology, School Nursing, General.

I tend to work with the SPED team here. If one of LS children come, I document it and I examine them. The teacher in charge of them was a nurse too so we work together to decide if the student should go home or not. After that either her or I call parents and explain the situation.

I'm sorry that this happened to you, and I hope things go well for you!

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My SPED department when I first started my school 5 years ago ran like a machine. They would occasionally bring a kid and when they did, kid often met criteria to go home. NOW, that team has been replaced one by one and oh boy!! They are in and out all day long. While they are not out and out asking me to call home no questions asked like OP, they seem to push and push until some days I have no resolve left. Bottom line, every bad behavior of their autistic students is a medical problem to them. I don't know how many times I tell them "maybe they are just having a bad day and since their only way to communicate is non-verbal in nature........."

Ant the TA's, they are needier than the students. Always with an ache, pain, sore throat, wanting temp checked, blah, blah!!

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Specializes in Psychiatric Nursing.
I've been a school nurse for over 30 yrs with Sped students. I have a lot of Down Syndrome students. These kids are always nasally congested whether they have a cold or not. I see a lot of them, especially when they have a teacher that is new to Sped. I have to do a lot of educating the new teachers that a stuffy, runny nose for these kids is a constant thing and does not necessarily mean that they are sick. I've also seen teachers trying to get a student sent home because the student "is just not himself today" Yes, they do know their students but you will find that some teachers ( aides are even worse in my experience) want kids sent home because they just don't want to deal with them. What the aide did to you was so over the top....I would have become unglued.
I couldn't agree with you more. I have not even been at this school for a full school year yet, and I am almost at my wit's end with one special education teacher. I do believe that she genuinely does not want to be "bothered" with all of her kids, and she looks for any trivial reason to get me to send them home. Some of her concerns have been "His cheeks are pink," "He sneezed four times in a row," "He's crying," and, as you stated "He's just not himself today." Her classroom is quieter when one or two of her students goes home, and that is exactly what she wants.
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Yes and some of these teachers are deathly afraid of any germ, it's pathetic. They are in the wrong profession, quite honestly. I wonder sometimes, how they can sit next to a complete stranger on an airplane or in the movies and not worry if the person sitting next to them has lice or a cold. Boy, they become hysterical if they find out one kid on campus has lice. I try and keep it under wraps on my end but it's usually the parent calling the teacher that starts the hysteria and they insist on 1,300 kids being screened..Ugh. This job can really get to a person sometimes but it's usually the adults causing the drama.

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If they want you to violate written policy tell them you will do so as soon as you get a signed, notarized letter from them detailing exactly what you are to do.

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Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.

The OP should not have to be fighting with this teacher or the teacher's boss. I think the OP needs to escalate this to HER own boss, and get some communication going. Perhaps everyone needs to sit down and talk it out.

The nurse is responsible for the clinical wellbeing of the student, the teacher is in charge of the teaching. Perhaps the teachers need an education in what is or isn't significant, and need their anxiety levels decreased. But their needs to be some talking done.

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Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.

So they want to send the kid home for their own reasons, but they want the nurse to rubber-stamp the decision to make it look medical? NOT.

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My Best Suggestion, if this happens again.... is to.... Send The Aide Home!!! Wait... and the Teacher too! :roflmao:

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Specializes in ER.

My best friend works with special-ED pre-K, and it seems one of the main reasons they send kids home is that the parents did not medicate the child and he is acting out, disruptive or destructive beyond control. The teachers know these kids well enough to know when they have or have not had their medications. The students often tell on the parents for not medicating them. This creates a medical situation which has nothing to do with a usual assessment for illness. Is failure to medicate part of your situation?

And this next line may upset some people, but we constantly work outside of policy. Starting with a policy that says every patient will be triaged within 5 minutes of arrival (impossible when they come in eight at a time, etc), the list goes on and on. We often joke that policies are there to protect the institution and make sure the nurse is hung out to dry if anything ever goes wrong.

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