Hi all, this is my first year working in the schools. Much like everyone else, I've been seeing a lot of students sent to my office by teachers for stomach ache/headache etc who I often end up sending back to class (no fever, no vomiting after monitoring in my office- usually a rest here with water and they feel better). Today my principal (also new this year to the school) came to me and said that one of the teachers wants to discuss with the school's leadership team how students are sent back to class from the nurse's office. This same teacher came into the main office a few weeks ago and informed the secretaries that all of the students being sent to the nurse's office should be sent home from school (this was in the middle of a huge increase in flu-like symptoms, and I had already been sending kids home way more than normal). I explained to the principal after hearing about the teacher's comments that I have to go through a process - assessing the student, communicating with the parent if need be, etc and that I can't just send every student home. She is supportive so far, and hasn't ever questioned my judgement.
My feeling is that I'm going to hear from this meeting that I'm not sending students home often enough. I try to communicate with the teachers about why I'm sending students back to class, and have tried implementing a "nurse's office pass" that teachers can use to send a student to my office, and I use these to write a quick note back to the teacher. Many teachers still don't use these when sending students though, so I'm not as in practice writing notes as I'd like to be. If it seems like unusual symptoms or I've seen the student twice, I'll definitely call the teacher/write a note. I've gotten emails this year from teachers questioning how I was dealing with kids who have lice with comments like "we've never seen this before" (really, she's never seen kids with lice in school?). We also implemented new rules to deal with food coming into the schools for birthdays mainly (to address food allergies and all of the cupcakes/treats trotted down the halls), and teachers have been pretty vocal about not liking this either.
I'm concerned that the teachers have decided not to trust my judgement, and I'm worried that this will lead to more problems. Has anyone dealt with this in the past? It could be just the combination of a new front office team and longtime teachers with the school who aren't willing to accept that change in staff (or any change). My overall feeling after hearing from the principal today is that the negativity at this school is wearing on me, and if I can't win their trust this might not be the right job for me.
