Completing school attendance your task too?

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I am wondering do any of you handle the attendances, late arrival check-in, and early dismissal check-out? I am the only medical staff that works at my school campus. The RN doesn't come in. I work for a private school grades 1st- 12th with a total of 270 students. When I was hired last year the front office lady gave me the task of handling attendance because it was taking up a lot of her time (several hours a day) because about half of the teachers/specialist do not complete attendance, so she would have to call them all (about 30 people). Well, now since it's my job I am having a hard time finding the time to call the staff who hasn't completed their attendance because I see at least 15 students a day, one of my students has been having a lot of nonepileptic seizures lately, and I give 35 students medications throughout the day. Majority of my students who take meds I have go to them because my school does not want them missing class time to take meds - This means I am away from my desk a lot and that means I cannot sit down to make phone calls. I am also doing other things: inputting immunization records and other medical info provided by parents, documenting clinic visits and when meds are given, helping out with front office duties when I am at my desk - answering phone calls, helping people that are coming into the front office, and printing color copies for teachers.

Is completing attendance typically the RN, CNA, or MA job? If completing attendance is your job is it very time consuming for you too? Are your teachers failing to complete their attendance? Oh and our high school teachers have to take attendance every period not just 1st period, so my job is to go through every period to make sure they are completing it, which many of them forget most periods.

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Specializes in kids.

I used to do it, but finally convinced them it did me no good to get into an issue with a kid or a family over unexcused absences or tardies, and then expect that child to come to me when they needed me. I finally had an administraor see the light!

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Specializes in IMC, school nursing.

Tough call. I used to do attendance, I was available and I wanted a handle of the illnesses. It was taken away, thankfully. I only had to deal with 8 teachers, but I had to hunt them down. Making your med rounds, you could save a few calls. Do you use computers to enter attendance? That would save a lot of hassle. Always amazed me that teachers didn't get into a routine when it comes to attendance.

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Specializes in School Nurse, past Med Surge.

Sometimes I do, mostly I don't. But I do make the phone calls if we haven't heard from parents. I'm thinking you need to get your admin's help on this one.

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Specializes in Pediatrics, school nursing.

I don't do anything with attendance, except when a teacher marks a student absent, and they spent that class period in the clinic. We have an attendance clerk who signs students in and out, as well as maintains attendance records. Our teachers are expected to take attendance on the computer each class period. I work at a 9th-grade campus with 1050 students, and about 80 teachers, so I am thankful that I do not have to handle attendance!

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Specializes in School nursing.

I don't, our office manager does. But we did move to an online system of doing it, so that helped a lot! Still need to track down a few teachers that don't log it and often they make mistakes. We can also make attendance calls automatically using the computer system too so that helps.

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Specializes in Home Health,Dialysis, MDS, School Nurse.

Our Elementary and high school secretaries do our attendance. Ours is on the computer, teachers mark who isn't in their classroom when the bell rings, then the secretaries will call those that are marked absent. Tardy kids have to be let in by office staff, so then they are changed to tardy. The high school has to report every class period, so she is chasing missing kids all day! If I have a kid in my office for a long time, i'll let them know, so they aren't wondering why they were here all day and suddenly gone. It's definitely a job I'm glad I don't have!

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We enter the absences into Powerschool. Some people call in to my office, some call the main office. I enter the students who are called in on my phone. Sometimes we have to call the families, if there isn't a reason for absence listed. The teachers usually call right away if someone is missing who hasn't been entered as absent.

Giving 35 meds out of your office is a bit much! What do you do with the kids who are in your office when it's time for the med pass?

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Specializes in NCSN.

I have lots of questions.

What exactly is your role in the school? Do they consider you the school "nurse" (your post made it sound like you don't have an RN or LPN)? Why doesn't the RN come in? Have you been trained to do the things you are doing?

The reason all of those matter to me is because it really sounds like you are doing two very separate jobs. What happens if you are on the phone with an angry parent who's kid has been tardy for the 100th time and the little one you mentioned begins to have a seizure? What if while you are going to pass meds (which is crazy that they expect you to go to each class to do in my opinion) you have a parent come in who begins to ask you 100 questions and demand your time?

If you were hired to be the health person, that needs to be your focus. It doesn't hurt to help when you have time, but if they are leaning on you to track down both kids and adults all day long PLUS do all of the paperwork that is a part of the health office role AND be a friendly face in the front office, they are asking too much.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

The health office nurse does it in the elementary schools in my district. For secondary there is a part time person in the office who does the attendance BUT it often falls to the nurse to do it because the office person is "too busy". It's definitely been a problem and we have fought with administration to please remember that our nurses are nurses first. If they have a particularly busy day or an emergency comes up they should not be relied on to do the attendance. The nurses work bell to bell so only 6 hours a day and have enough of their own nursing work to do without having other things pile up on them.

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Specializes in kids.
I used to do it, but finally convinced them it did me no good to get into an issue with a kid or a family over unexcused absences or tardies, and then expect that child to come to me when they needed me. I finally had an administraor see the light!

The down side is that all kinds of information gets trapped there...upcoming surgery, out for extended amount of time etc

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.
I give 35 students medications throughout the day. Majority of my students who take meds I have go to them because my school does not want them missing class time to take meds - This means I am away from my desk a lot

Wait...wha? None of these kids have a lunch period when they can come to be medicated?

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