Do you have a sub nurse

Eleven011 · Sep 21, 2016

I'm in a little different situation, in that my district is one school/one nurse (me). What I have, is 3 nurses from the community that either don't work, or work part time and are willing to fill in for me if I need a day off. If none of those 3 are available, we have 2 med aides on school grounds that could give the meds in my absence. So far, it has worked ok.

kidzcare · Sep 21, 2016

1.Is this normal ?
2. Do you have subs or a float nurse
3. How does your discrict justify needing a sub

I think this varies by district.

the previous district I worked in had a few subs we could call (we had to call our own subs, which I thought was annoying) but it was hard to get one.

My current district is a lot larger and has a nurse in every school with several floats to cover when someone is out.

AdobeRN · Sep 21, 2016

We have a sub list of nurses just like the teachers do - they are hired the same way teacher subs are. Our district uses AESOP, so if we know we are going to be out we can put in the absence into the program, people on the sub list can access it to pick up jobs or AESOP will send auto calls out if job is not picked up close to the date. If we wake up sick or unexpectedly can not work we are expected to call a sub in from the list - if no luck getting coverage we let our nursing coordinator know and whoever is the clinic backup person may need to cover the clinic for the day.

We have 65+ schools, with a nurse at each school - our sub list is awful, only about 20 people. Most of the time we can get coverage - rare cases our school secretary may have to run the clinic for the day - she is trained in medication administration, basic first aid & is my "unlicensed Diabetic Care Assistant" so she can also help the diabetics with glucose testing and insulin administration.

DEgalRN · Sep 21, 2016

We have a list of nurses from the community that we call first. However, after we were unable to get a sub last year, my school also contracted with a sub agency. I'm in a charter so it is a little different.

BeckyESRN · Sep 21, 2016

We have district subs. We call them when needed (field trips, sick days, personal days, screening help). I guess we tried AESOP at one point and it didn't work out. OP, maybe see if you can find some nurse parents that may be willing to fill in PRN and present that to your district?

kummerspeck · Sep 22, 2016

In my district, there are 17 schools. One of our elementary schools has an RN and an LPN (Medically fragile kids head there). One high school has two nurses, the other has three. We have a float nurse for the district, but this is the first year for that. There is a very short list of subs (I am one of them, but my schedule sucks for that so I don't get to as often as I would like-except my little Long Term slot). Main reason they can't get a lot of subs is that they pay subs badly in this district, so nurses just don't bother. Even the two bigger cities in my state only pay $135 a day. It's terrible.

kidzcare · Sep 22, 2016

Main reason they can't get a lot of subs is that they pay subs badly in this district, so nurses just don't bother. Even the two bigger cities in my state only pay $135 a day. It's terrible.

:yes:

Yep! You are correct! The previous district I worked in that had so few subs told met that they didn't really like to work at the school for that when they could do a PRN shift at the hospital for $200-400/shift. The liability is too much for such low pay. And a few specifically told me that they didn't want to pick up at the 2 largest schools in the district (I worked at one of them). They only wanted to pick up at a school with less than 400 kids.

kummerspeck · Sep 22, 2016

Our district pays $100 a day. (I, however, get $25 an hour for my mini shift that I work four days a week). It's ridiculous. But what's even sadder is that they pay their school teacher subs $65 a day, and the sub teachers all have to be licensed educators and in my state, you have to get your master's degree within 3 or 5 years or something. It's INSANE to pay that low.

mattfd37 · Sep 23, 2016

[COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]I am a float nurse, the 2nd FT float for the town. We are very blessed to have what we have here, because other towns are not covered like we are. We have 13 schools (10 Elem [2 have 2 nurses], 2 Middle [both have 2 nurses] and 1 HS [3 nurses] for 2,000+ kids. We have 12 or so subs. I start at one school usually at the larger Elem and then float to one of the smaller schools half way through the day. They justified a 2^nd float based off of nurses absent rate. They broke it down by how many days 1 nurse was out during the yr, then 2 nurses etc and then how many times there was coverage. I've been in this position for about 2.5 weeks and love it, I also work in an ER Per Diem.[/COLOR]

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