Lead School Nurse vs Health Services Director

[Meekie J., BSN]

I am a fairly new school nurse. In my district there is one nurse (RN or LVN) for each campus along with a Health Facilitator that assist the nurses. Prior to this school year there was a Health Services Director in place that supervised the nursing staff, that person has since resigned. Hiring for the HSD position has been frozen due to reorg and restructuring in the district HOWEVER a lead nurse position has been created (position comes with a stipend). Please share your expertise and opinions on what the job duties of the lead nurse should be? What boundaries should be set (before crossing over into the HSD duties)? What should that stipend look like?

Welcome to ANY other information you all would like to share ?

[OldDude]

"stipend" as defined in public school means - "you're going to be drastically and ridiculously underpaid for the extra time and effort required."

"lead nurse" as defined in your situation in public school means - "you will be responsible for the entire health service department and you will have little to no authority regarding decision making."

Run...

[tining, BSN, RN]

Yup

[pedi_nurse]

I've also known a few districts to have a Lead Nurse who was also responsible for a campus. Definitely wouldn't touch that one.

[ruby_jane, BSN, RN]

I don't have any better answers but it sounds like district is eliminating an FTE and trying to cover one position with a part of another position (and that position is already busy).

They did this in RJ junior's school district 10 years ago. They saved a $70K FTE (MSN) and one poor nurse from a junior high stepped up. I love that woman. She's now the director of nursing and hopefully making more than that. But for two years, there was no formal direction. Over the occasional times I had to chat with RJ Jr.'s nurses during that time, there was a definite sense of "nobody's got our back." But there was also a sense of pulling together for the sake of the kids.

Please remember Ruby Jane's maxim: We will not do more with less. We can only do less with less.

[iggywench, BSN, RN]

This happened in my district in the past. At the time, we had a Lead Nurse who was in charge of about 50 schools. She retired, and they replaced her with campus-based leads for about 4 years. These nurses were still responsible for their campus, but also supervised other nurses, and met periodically to discuss issues and policies. I don't know what their stipend was, but I guarantee it was not enough!

Now, we have a Director of Health Services who is a former lead nurse; she has an office in the admin building, and is in charge of all 63 of our school nurses. She works long hours, and I don't think her pay is enough to compensate her for all of her extra duties.

[UrbanHealthRN, BSN, RN]

I don't have much to add, but definitely DO NOT take the position if they are expecting you to be both a school nurse at one of the campuses and a supervisor of other people. You are either one or the other; being both will rapidly burn you out.

[guest464345]

7 hours ago, OldDude said:

"stipend" as defined in public school means - "you're going to be drastically and ridiculously underpaid for the extra time and effort required."

"lead nurse" as defined in your situation in public school means - "you will be responsible for the entire health service department and you will have little to no authority regarding decision making."

Run...

Well said! Run!

[jess11RN]

On 1/31/2019 at 12:42 PM, OldDude said:

"lead nurse" as defined in your situation in public school means - "you will be responsible for the entire health service department and you will have little to no authority regarding decision making."

Run...

I'm in this type of position right now. It's extremely difficult and frequently disheartening.