How to get a job as a school nurse?

100kids, BSN, RN · May 6, 2014

I would suggest trying to start as a School Nurse substitute. First of all it will get your foot in the door or a district or districts you may be interested in working in. Also it may give you better insight into School Nursing and if it's a good fit for you. School Nursing can have quite a bit of stress as well. I am the only medical professional in the building and if something comes up they are all looking to me to take care of it and have all the answers. Oftentimes you don't have someone to easily bounce ideas off of so you need to be confident in your abilities and judgment. You never know what is going to come through your door and you are often seeing kids 2 minutes after an injury. Assessment of a broken arm after 30 minutes when the arm is bruised and swollen is a whole lot different than making a call when they just fell off the slide 2 minutes ago. There is also a lot of paperwork to be done which gets tedious but can take a lot of time. In my school I wear many different hats in this position. It would not be a good fit for everyone. I would suggest subbing and even shadowing a few School Nurses to see if it's really what you are thinking it will be.

OldDude · May 6, 2014

I would suggest trying to start as a School Nurse substitute. First of all it will get your foot in the door or a district or districts you may be interested in working in. Also it may give you better insight into School Nursing and if it's a good fit for you. School Nursing can have quite a bit of stress as well. I am the only medical professional in the building and if something comes up they are all looking to me to take care of it and have all the answers. Oftentimes you don't have someone to easily bounce ideas off of so you need to be confident in your abilities and judgment. You never know what is going to come through your door and you are often seeing kids 2 minutes after an injury. Assessment of a broken arm after 30 minutes when the arm is bruised and swollen is a whole lot different than making a call when they just fell off the slide 2 minutes ago. There is also a lot of paperwork to be done which gets tedious but can take a lot of time. In my school I wear many different hats in this position. It would not be a good fit for everyone. I would suggest subbing and even shadowing a few School Nurses to see if it's really what you are thinking it will be.

......well said!!

fetch, BSN, RN · May 6, 2014

Assessment of a broken arm after 30 minutes when the arm is bruised and swollen is a whole lot different than making a call when they just fell off the slide 2 minutes ago.

So, so true! I wish someone had spelled that out to be at the start of this year, it's one of those logical things you just don't put together until you've got a screaming kid right in front of you!

AmberBradford · Jun 26, 2014

I have been a sub school nurse for two years now. I love it. I am used more as a long term sub but I also do the day here and there subbing. I must say that is it way different then I thought it would be. Here is a run down on a "normal" day in the life of a school nurse.

0745- Kids start to come in with cuts and bumps from play ground. Others come in throwing up d/t being send sick.

0800-morning meds start and you are still trying to get ahold of someone to pick up the sick little ones.

0900- people calling to see what they to do about this thing or that. This is when you will see some kids with headaches/SVN TX.

1000- more med passing mostly inhalers/SVN before after P.E.

1100-1300- kids lunch time. lots of kids will be "sick" at this time. They know nurses office has saltines and it may be better then the other school food. Others are really sick and the Tylenol that mom gave it now gone. More calls to home for a pick up.

1300-1500- more meds to pass. More calls to people for pick ups d/t sickness and injury. Calls to try once more to get paperwork that is missing that mom never bought in.

Paperwork will be done in 5min time frames. You have to doc on every child that walks into your office. Then there is all of the state and district paper work. There are days that you will see the arm/leg that is FX. Head trauma I see more of this then the man in the moon. I have to deal with feeding tubes, cathing kids and ostomys. You have to be willing to talk to moms and dads about the childs health care needs. You need to know where there are free places for health care or ones with a low fee. CPS calls are made more then you would like to know.

The avg. school will have 800-1200 kids and 100-200 staff. You are the sole medical person. So you have to know that you know your stuff. Even if you don't feel like you know it you really do. I still at times have to stop what I am doing and take a deep breath and tell myself that I can do this.

I LOVE it. This is one of the areas of nursing that the rubber meets the road and you are truly helping people. I go home at the end of the day and know that I have made a huge impact on a child's life. Once you sub it is easy to get on full time. I would also look for opening around Nov/Dec. Lots of nurses start the year and the do not end the year. You just need to know how to work with kids. What things will you see with a child. Look back in your peds book and you will be fine.

Good luck to you as you are looking for a job.

TiredKitten · Jun 26, 2014

I'd suggest subbing too. I'm guessing Amber works at a public school. My kids go to private school and subbing there is quite different from what she wrote about. And it's not from the number of kids. My kids school has almost 1400 kids from K3-12th grade, with one nurse for the older half and another for the lower half. I've only worked with the younger half so far. Mainly our place is meds and scraps. I've had days where I had nothing but a couple of meds at lunch. Others where I'll have meds and a couple of scraps. The occasional kids getting sick or rare falling and breaking a bone. I'm not sure if its a private vs public thing, but we rarely have to deal with kids coming sick, usually don't have a problem getting ahold of parents (the majority have a stay home parent), and never have deal with parents not having insurance or knowing where free/low cost clinics are. These parents can afford the best for their kids. I can see why the two nurses have worked here for years.

I've got a friend that works at another private school (about 140 kids) and her experience is similar to mine.

If you think you want to look into private school nursing, just start calling around the various schools in your area. Our nurses and my friend didn't have any specific experience. Some are diploma RNs and others are Associate RNs.