Lost and Found

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Specializes in School Nurse.

How many of you have the lost and found relegated to your office? I'm not sure how this became to be the nurse's responsibility. I think it may date to the practice of my predecessor taking the unclaimed clothing at the end of the year to hand out in accident situations.

Specializes in School nurse.

I did away with this leftover practice. I don't have room, I want to keep illness exposure to a minimum, and I seriously don't need the interruptions.

Specializes in Home Health,Dialysis, MDS, School Nurse.

We have a table (sometimes it grows to two) in the main hallway to hold lost and found. Its in a high traffic area so kids might see their stuff. The janitors usually take care of it. Twice a year its carted off to charity if no one claims it. They do offer it up to me first though in case I want to keep something in my office. I usually grab the hats and gloves, good snowpants, coats, etc.

It's in my office. And sometimes it STINKS! My biggest complaint about it though is the parents who call to ask if I can sort through it to look for little Jimmy's sweatshirt because he is too "busy" to stop by and look for it. I'm in a high school. It gets thrown out or donated several times a year. Not sure how this is a nursing duty.

Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

ours is kept near the hallway outside the cafeteria - high traffic with hopes that a kid will id their lost jacket and grab it. That seldom actually happens. I stopped stocking coats and other cold weather supplies a while ago due to storage and if a kid comes looking, i tell them to go and borrow something from lost and found and put it back afterward. I tell their teacher too, as they usually forget to return things and i don't need to hear it if a parent recognizes a child wearing their kid's jacket and finds out that i suggested they take (borrow, in reality) it from the lost and found

Specializes in Med-surg, school nursing..

Ours is kept in our Family Resource room, agree with above poster, wanna keep the germs low and ain't nobody got room for that!

Specializes in School Nursing, Pediatrics.

Not in my office! It is in the cafeteria, where all go so they can look for their stuff. My office is too small!

Specializes in NCSN.

They want to move it here. They asked when I first started and again over the summer and both times I've said no. I have too many bodies going in and out and already not enough space. I wouldn't be able to control if someone took something that wasn't there's while I was assessing someone else.

We are 4 days into the school year and our lost and found tables already have 43 jackets, 1 sock(not even a pair, just a single sock), 2 pair of glasses, and 3 lunch boxes. Thankfully, the lost and found is not in my office!

Specializes in School Nursing.

We have a bin outside the health office where the lost and found is located. I'm not sure yet who deals with it.

In my old district the janitors were the ones who dealt with the lost and found. I would help them fold and organize the massive amount of lost items at a few key times throughout the year (fall conferences, end of first semester, spring conferences, end of the year) and put them out on tables. At the end of the year my health aide went through and took the good stuff. We had a large population of low income families so we knew when we "loaned" an item to a kid we weren't getting it back so we constantly needed to restock our extra clothes closet. We also bought new underwear and socks using PTA money and my husband's lovely Target employee discount to give to the kids who needed those items.

We have a bin in the cafeteria area - week into school and it is already half full. I don't mess with it at all except for when the weather changes and kids come to school without jackets and complain they are cold - I send them to the lost and found to "borrow" a jacket if they need it. Our principal usually takes the lost and found items to a Goodwill every other month or so.

It's ill-advised to have the lost and found in the nurse's office. Why have perfectly healthy kids come into the nurse's office where any number of sick kids could be or may have sneezed all over their misplaced library book?

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