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So my superintendent just approached me and said "I'd like us to start looking into hiring some help for you on 2 of our campuses. Since we're all located so far a part, it makes no sense you driving to each campus so much. I was thinking we could look to hire a nursing student to be an aide for you on the other two campuses. We'll need to see how much to budget for them and everything. Let me know what you find out."

1) yay for help!

2) any suggestions on where to start on this?!

3) anyone know if that's a thing? hiring nursing students to be aides? how does that work with their nursing student status and working in the capacity of an aide? is it the same as if they were a PCA at the hospital?

4) where do I even begin to look for a pay scale for this?

5) any and all help is greatly appreciated!

2 hours ago, Red Shirt 6 said:

Are your student nurses going to be a part of a federal work study program or hired thru the district?

So what I was told was they are wanting to get 2 part time aides to assist with med passes and any kids who *might* end up with some extra care (i.e.: assist my 1 T1D when they are high or low). They would be hired through the district.

As it stands right now, since I am not on these 2 campuses but 1 day a week each, the environment for the students is tougher than the ones on my home campus where they know I'm here. I am chartered through the local university here and we have 2 satellite campuses in near by cities (~1 hr from my home campus; it's located directly between the other 2 cities). All 3 have a nursing program. I work with the nursing students every semester as they help me with my screenings.

I think my SI initially went with the idea of hiring a nursing student since there is a sense of obligation since we are chartered through the university which offers the nursing program. But my concerns for that are lack of knowledge, availability, and frequent turnover. I'm not interested in nor do I have the time to train a new aide every semester. That would be more work and less help. The more I think about it, hiring a nursing student is not going to be ideal. I can appreciate my SI's intentions with the idea, but it's just not going to be feasible.

6 Votes
Specializes in school nursing.
16 hours ago, KeeperOfTheIceRN said:

So what I was told was they are wanting to get 2 part time aides to assist with med passes and any kids who *might* end up with some extra care (i.e.: assist my 1 T1D when they are high or low). They would be hired through the district.

As it stands right now, since I am not on these 2 campuses but 1 day a week each, the environment for the students is tougher than the ones on my home campus where they know I'm here. I am chartered through the local university here and we have 2 satellite campuses in near by cities (~1 hr from my home campus; it's located directly between the other 2 cities). All 3 have a nursing program. I work with the nursing students every semester as they help me with my screenings.

I think my SI initially went with the idea of hiring a nursing student since there is a sense of obligation since we are chartered through the university which offers the nursing program. But my concerns for that are lack of knowledge, availability, and frequent turnover. I'm not interested in nor do I have the time to train a new aide every semester. That would be more work and less help. The more I think about it, hiring a nursing student is not going to be ideal. I can appreciate my SI's intentions with the idea, but it's just not going to be feasible.

CNA's or an actual additional RN would be more beneficial.

2 Votes
Specializes in kids.
20 hours ago, KeeperOfTheIceRN said:

What the focalin?!

True story...

@KeeperOfTheIceRN at least your SI's heart was there.

4 Votes
Specializes in Emergency / Disaster.

As a nursing student - nursing students probably won't work for you - but... you could sign up to be a clinical site for Community courses. This would get you at least 1 nursing student for free each semester to assist with things they can do without supervision - lice checks for example and basic eye/ear screenings. Our instructor doesn't have to be with us - but we have to be with a nurse. This isn't a solution to staffing, but rather free help you could take advantage of at certain times during the year. It usually just involves a contract stating that the nursing students will be vetted by the college and properly vaccinated and that you will provide supervision and something to do for the student. For community - we don't have to do skills (we can - but don't have to). We assist in schools, help with marathons, work in various clinics ... Our clinicals are set up so that we have 1 clinical per week per course and it varies from 4 to 12 hours per clinical (time varies by course). Community time was determined by the sponsoring organization.

1 Votes
On 11/22/2019 at 8:20 AM, CanIcallmymom said:

CNA's or an actual additional RN would be more beneficial.

I agree!

2 Votes
On 11/22/2019 at 11:41 AM, ihavealltheice said:

@KeeperOfTheIceRN at least your SI's heart was there.

Yes! I'll be following up with her and I feel very confident that she'll understand the cons to hiring a nursing student and that we'll venture down the path of a couple of CNA's instead.

2 Votes
Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

Hiring nursing students as aids sounds good in theory but I do have some reservations about that idea. First I can't imagine they'd actually be able to do much, all that practicing outside scope nonsense, lol. Second how on earth would that work schedule wise? Unless the nursing school you'd be drawing from has some unusual course schedule wouldn't the nursing students be in school themselves the same hours their services would be needed?

1 Votes
Specializes in Critical Care.

you get paid for mileage and can deduct on taxes!

Specializes in school nurse.
On 11/21/2019 at 4:40 PM, KeeperOfTheIceRN said:

So what I was told was they are wanting to get 2 part time aides to assist with med passes and any kids who *might* end up with some extra care (i.e.: assist my 1 T1D when they are high or low). They would be hired through the district.

As it stands right now, since I am not on these 2 campuses but 1 day a week each, the environment for the students is tougher than the ones on my home campus where they know I'm here. I am chartered through the local university here and we have 2 satellite campuses in near by cities (~1 hr from my home campus; it's located directly between the other 2 cities). All 3 have a nursing program. I work with the nursing students every semester as they help me with my screenings.

I think my SI initially went with the idea of hiring a nursing student since there is a sense of obligation since we are chartered through the university which offers the nursing program. But my concerns for that are lack of knowledge, availability, and frequent turnover. I'm not interested in nor do I have the time to train a new aide every semester. That would be more work and less help. The more I think about it, hiring a nursing student is not going to be ideal. I can appreciate my SI's intentions with the idea, but it's just not going to be feasible.

Being spread so thin, how in the world do you get all the work done??

2 hours ago, Jedrnurse said:

Being spread so thin, how in the world do you get all the work done??

Lots of communication and training for my 2 satellite campuses! My admins there are downright AMAZING. We're actually a pretty small district with only ~800 students K-12. The way are classroom model is, it would be very difficult for a severely handicapped child to succeed here so we don't have the major disabilities most public schools have. My most medically fragile student district wide is the 1 T1D that I have. The rest are just ADHD and asthmatics with a handful of allergies that have potential to become anaphylactic. I have no tube feeds, no wheelchair bound students, no severely mentally delayed students, no trachs, no caths, no colostomy bags etc. etc.

My home campus is actually the one I worry about the most when I'm not there and I think that is because they know I'm here most so they don't have to be as self sufficient as my other 2 campuses. When I travel to my other 2 campuses, those days become my uninterrupted data entry days.

Specializes in school nurse.
3 hours ago, KeeperOfTheIceRN said:

Lots of communication and training for my 2 satellite campuses! My admins there are downright AMAZING. We're actually a pretty small district with only ~800 students K-12. The way are classroom model is, it would be very difficult for a severely handicapped child to succeed here so we don't have the major disabilities most public schools have. My most medically fragile student district wide is the 1 T1D that I have. The rest are just ADHD and asthmatics with a handful of allergies that have potential to become anaphylactic. I have no tube feeds, no wheelchair bound students, no severely mentally delayed students, no trachs, no caths, no colostomy bags etc. etc.

My home campus is actually the one I worry about the most when I'm not there and I think that is because they know I'm here most so they don't have to be as self sufficient as my other 2 campuses. When I travel to my other 2 campuses, those days become my uninterrupted data entry days.

What happens to the "I have a headache (during math)" snowflakes when you're not in the building?

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