The phones are down in the whole school. Everyone else seems to be pretty excited about this... Not me.
My job sort of depends on a phone, calling parents of an ill or injured child. I've had two that need to be sent home already this morning. They told me to call from my cell phone.
A.)I have to pretty much stand on my head to get service from my office, walking to the front of the building is a bit difficult to do at this time. My neck does a bob-and-weave maneuver to keep service.
B.)I'm not really comfortable with parents having my personal number. Just a guess but as the secretary or even counselor I can't imagine why a parent would want to call you after hours. BUT as the nurse, I already get messages (text and facebook) from parents that I was friends with prior to getting this job. "What does this rash look like to you?" "Do you think this looks like pink eye?" "I'll send Johnny in the morning, can you look at that cut and tell me if you think it needs stitches." Not to mention the personal questions about themselves.
I did end up calling the parent of the kiddo with a fever from my phone, simply because she looks pitiful and I don't want her waiting any longer than she has to.
Am I being ridiculous? I keep in contact with my diabetic kiddos parents through text sometimes, or parents that I know personally. But strangers?
The school needs to provide you with a school cell phone if they want you to be able to contact parents. No way would I every give our or use my personal cell.
I use my own cell phone. My number is in the directory from before I worked here, so parents have access if they want it and many parents need text communication because of work. I have never had a problem with parents calling at inconvenient times.
I use my own cell to communicate with the mother of my diabetic student, but that is the ONLY one.
Me, too. I have shared my cell number with two parents I trust. They respect it.
Our phones were down a couple of weeks ago. I could call out, but not one person could call into my office. Ugh, it was terrible and lasted 5 days! The one person they could call to was the main office and the office manager, bless her heart, was okay with me using her as relay. (She'd email me if parent called office, telling me parent was ready for me to call back now.)
In some cases, since I work with the older kiddos, I gave them special permission to use their cell phone (usually a no-no) and we called their guardian together. Some of the fastest ways I've reached parents ever using that method that week though!
Specializes in med-surg, IMC, school nursing, NICU.
I feel you 100%! I gave my cell number to a diabetic student's mom. She wants to know all sugars in real time and texting is just easier. It was fine until a few months into the school year, she texted me on a SUNDAY. Heck to the no! I told her that there is nothing she could possibly have to tell me that couldn't wait until school hours on Monday. She didn't do it again. She did ask me to download some app that would communicate her Dexcom sugar readings to my cell phone during the day, which I also had to shoot down pretty quickly.
I have called parents from my cell on the rare occasions that our phones were down but I never had a problem with parents bugging me after the fact. I can understand why you wouldn't want to!
I had to do that once too and called a bunch of parents from my cell phone. I was really not happy.
Fortunately, not one single one decided to go bonkers with that special knowledge.
My diabetic parents do have my cell and they occasionally text me. It is not too bad. They are respectful.
I do use an app on my desktop computer that sends real time results to the parents by text and email (as soon as I enter it that is). I don't know if it is an app on the phone or not because I only use it on my work computer and I have to say it is pretty handy.
It's the blueloop connect and I highly recommend it for all the school nurse peeps.
DeeAngel
830 Posts
The school needs to provide you with a school cell phone if they want you to be able to contact parents. No way would I every give our or use my personal cell.