how long do you wait?

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Do you stay after school ends with a sick student or leave them in the front office? As I am writing this I have a student in my office who has been waiting over 1 1/2 hours to get picked up. School ended 45 minutes ago. Just wondering what everyone else does. BTW I do not get paid once school is over. Here comes a parent of the year award!

Specializes in School Nursing, Pediatrics.

It depends on the illness but generally no I do not stay. I have stayed once while waiting for emergency mental health services for someone. Otherwise, students can go go the office.

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Specializes in Cardiology, School Nursing, General.

I have two examples: One was this middle schooler who was not feeling too well. Had fever and threw up earlier but was fine. I called parents, but no one answered. We waited the whole day and no one ever came to get her. So right at 3pm, I told her to go to the front because she's not throwing up and her family was coming to get her anyway.

Another example, I got this elementary student who had a fever and throwing up. I called mom, but mom didn't answer. Found out that mom doesn't have a phone anymore and the only one with number is father, but he can't hear the phone at work. So we waited the whole day and the kid throwing up. I stayed with him because he's really sick. Mom came, and took him to the doctor afterwards, but she apologized and I told her I understood but to please fix this in the front office to establish a good emergency contact in case of emergencies like this.

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Yikes! After an hour or so, our school liason (spellling) officer goes and knocks on parent's door or hunts them down.

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When the dismissal bell is about to ring, I walk them from my clinic to the classroom with a handwritten letter saying I've been trying to call and your student was ill all day and in my clinic, unable to learn. The letter describes symptoms, refers to physician and requests updates to contact numbers. Then they dismiss whatever way they typically do whether it is home with parents, to daycare (sorry, daycare, hope you have better luck getting in touch with parents than I did) or on the bus. If they are vomiting, I send a sick bag. If low grade feverish, they go with an ice pack. Granted, if they were extremely ill and needed monitoring I would keep them in my care until handed off to a parent in person - nursing judgement required. :nurse:

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It depends on the situation. In emergency situations or extreme illness, I have stayed with the student. In cases of a normal illness, I leave them with an administrator. I am not allowed to have any overtime.

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If it's close to the end of the day I will let the parent know your child needs to be picked up. However, please keep in mind if you are not here by the dismissal bell I will have your child get on the bus if they are stable enough to get on the bus. Now, if it's severe enough where they need monitoring but do not need an ambulance I will keep them, and wait for parent to show. I don't get paid for it. I'm not hourly.

There was one time I really needed to leave and that was already after waiting 30 minutes past my normal go home time. The student was well enough, the principal waited for parent to show up.

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Ask your school district to clarify the policy on this in writing. Personally if I'm not paid, I wouldn't be waiting. Many daycares call CPS if the parents are more than 30 minutes late, I think this would be a good policy to adopt. Otherwise parents will take terrible advantage of you. Whatever you do, do not "fine" parents for being late, that just gives them tacit approval to use you as a cheap baby sitting service. A lot of daycares have discovered this the hard way.

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Specializes in IMC, school nursing.
Ask your school district to clarify the policy on this in writing. Personally if I'm not paid, I wouldn't be waiting. Many daycares call CPS if the parents are more than 30 minutes late, I think this would be a good policy to adopt. Otherwise parents will take terrible advantage of you. Whatever you do, do not "fine" parents for being late, that just gives them tacit approval to use you as a cheap baby sitting service. A lot of daycares have discovered this the hard way.

The unspoken part of this is the grey area of you being covered by your employer. If you are staying past when you get paid, you are no longer considered an employee for that time. Should that tummy ache you are babysitting turn into a ruptured appendix that has complications, your employer could state that they are not liable because you stayed off clock. You may win the gamble all the time, but I wouldn't want to be the one that loses, kind of like Russian Roulette.

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The unspoken part of this is the grey area of you being covered by your employer. If you are staying past when you get paid, you are no longer considered an employee for that time. Should that tummy ache you are babysitting turn into a ruptured appendix that has complications, your employer could state that they are not liable because you stayed off clock. You may win the gamble all the time, but I wouldn't want to be the one that loses, kind of like Russian Roulette.
Thanks for pointing that out! I never really thought about it that way.
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Specializes in School Nursing.

I haven't had to stay late with a student yet but I have waited over 2 hours for a kid to get picked up. And I sent a kid who vomited once at school on the bus since a) I could not reach any person listed on the emergency call list and b) he said mom would be at home when he got there. I expected an angry phone call on Friday but nope, nothing. Dodged a bullet there.:yes:

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Your care ends at the end of your work day. I'd follow the policy for other kids that have late pick ups. There's no difference between you waiting for a well kid or sick kid, so in that case you should not be waiting unless you're doing it out of the kindness of you heart. If for some reason it was a special circumstance where you were the ONLY staff member available to watch someone, then you should talk with your supervisor about getting comp time for working beyond your shift. For example, they could give you 2 hours off on a parent-teacher conference day when you don't have students at school.

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Specializes in kids.

I am salaried and will stay as needed. I have HS kids so it is a rare day.

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