nurse to student ratio

[jbiddle]

Ok I wanted to touch base with other schools on their nurse to student ratio. I have 950 Kindergarteners -3rd graders in a public school setting. I don't have an aid or anything but the secretaries give medicine or treat minor injuries if I'm away from my office. I have several medical kids but no procedures. I am responsible for all the screenings, care plans, data entry, etc. And it is VERY overwhelming.... our law says 1 nurse for every 750 if funding allows. Does anyone have any suggestions or how does your school run? I love the kids but it's giving me gray hairs! Lol

[AdobeRN]

I am in Texas - not sure if there are laws regarding the nurse to student ratio. In our district Elementary schools (K-5) have anywhere from 500-900 kids with one nurse, middle schools (6-8) have 750-1200 kids with one nurse and if there are 900+ kids they also get an aide to help out in the clinic, high school (9-12) have 1000-2,500 kids with one nurse and an aide.

We have a screen team that we can schedule to come to our campus to do the screenings - they just take care of everybody on one day. The nurse is then responsible for entering the data, sending out referrals and doing any rescreens.

I don't know what kind of advise to give you - I was very overwhelmed in the beginning - took me about a year to get a good flow of things. For me the key was try to be as organized as possible.

Screenings - I do my own screenings on kids - I try to do one class over a day or two starting the week after school begins - I start with the older kids and work down to the younger ones - usually finish my screenings by December. I enter the data in our computer system as I go and send referrals as I go along.

Checking Immunizations - with new kinder registration I try to review the immunization records as we get them (starting in April) - make it a priority to notify parents of anything that is needed. I then need to enter the immunizations into our computer system - I take my time doing this.

Care Plans/IHP's: I try to do them as I am notified of whatever the issue is - we have generic care plans/IHP's for a variety of medical issues that can be quickly customized via a Word Document for what we need - most of the time I just need to attach it to the students record without much changing.

Action plans/medication consents/Misc forms - I have a stack of stuff ready to hand to/email parents with detailed instructions of how to complete the forms when I find out about medical issues.

Just hang in there - you will find a way that works for you.

[kidzcare]

I am about the same. 950 kids, no aide. I kinda do the same, I have to check all 6th grade physicals, immunizations, and dental forms. Vision/hearing screening I work in when I can. I don't do care plans and I've been to very few 504 meetings.