How to become a school nurse?

[climbeRN]

Hi all! I'm a pretty new nurse with 1.5 years of experience in NICU and 3 months experience in adult med/surg as well. I was a former teacher (everything from toddlers to college) and would really like to do school nursing because of A) the kids, B) more preventative health education opportunities, and C) a more regular schedule. I am also really hoping to do camp nursing in the summers which this would allow. I don't care about the pay cut at all. I am wondering what specialties of hospital nursing and years of experience you would recommend before getting into school nursing? Has anyone ever heard of shadowing a school nurse for a while in order to learn how its done? Im trying to imagine how I would figure out all the paperwork aspects and government requirements and contacting doctors without ever seeing how its done and it seems a little scary. Would love any advice for how to transition into this specialty! thanks for any advice you can give!! :)

[aprilmoss]

Primarily you have to reside near (or intend to relocate to) some place that uses school nurses. It's far from universal that every school has a nurse. Some do, some have nurses that cover multiple buildings on rotation, some distrctions don't have nurses at all.

While there is a movement out there to qualify school nursing as a dedicated specialty (NASN), really your RN and a good resume is what you need. Pediatric or perhaps occupational experience is probably a help, but frankly, at times we'll take anybody who's licensed. Other times, I've sat on candidates I knew, hoping news of an upcoming opening would come my way and I could "grease' them into the process.

[halohg, RN]

Determine your states requirements for example if fingerprinting is necessary. CPR training is up to date. If you have all the requirements ahead of time and pretty much speak and look presentable you will be offered at the very least a substitute position. If you have children start with the Nurse in their building to shadow for a few hours. Basically reach out to multiple districts for sub positions and temp agencies to see if this is a good fit for you and you will gain great experience. Soon enough a full time position will open up and you can decide if it's a good fit for you or not.

[OldDude]

As these guys advised, go get on the "sub" list in the nearest school district, or districts, talk to the head nurse or nurse contact in the districts about shadowing and learning the basics and then "be available" when you get the call to sub. One of the most frustrating things we deal with is the excitement of getting a new nurse on our sub list...only to find out they can only work every other leap year Wednesday afternoon; but they are "so excited about school nursing!" Ugh