Professional development days

Our district sends all our nurses to a county run conference on Election Day as that is considered a Superintendent’s conference day. Otherwise they offer CPR training prior to the start of the year, we also have done stop the bleed for the entire staff during a mandated staff meeting.

I have had to go to all the PDs with the teachers and they NEVER apply to me. I always feel like it is a complete waste of time.

14 minutes ago, MHDNURSE said:

I have had to go to all the PDs with the teachers and they NEVER apply to me. I always feel like it is a complete waste of time.

Yesterday I was involved the discussion about summative and formative assessments...Zzzzzz

15 hours ago, Militarywife said:

I looked through the topics and couldn't find anything related to this. As I am paid on the teacher salary I have to participate in the professional development (PD) days that is provided through the district. Im looking to see if your district provides PD topics related to nursing. Our director is pretty good and trying to find topics for the student support staff, but seeing if anybody has any suggestions on topics and where to find potential instructors. TIA

First, to answer your question, we (nurses) do not work on every PD day, but there are 2 or 3 that are district wide, and as such, we do participate. The ones I've gone to, one at the start of the year, and one in Nov or Dec, there has been an "everybody session" for 1/2 the day and a "your group session" for the other 1/2. The Health Services (my group) sessions are focused on issues that apply to us either directly - policies, regs, health room issues, etc - or just touchy/feely human stuff - take care of yourself, meditate, don't burn out, etc.

Second, your user name makes me smile. I am an Army wife, so it's nice to find another of my kind here. I feel like it's rare since we move around so much, it's hard to get into school nursing, and then as soon as we do, we move again and have to try all over. I'm happy your here with me!

I have to participate and it usually doesn't apply to me either. However, one of our PD days is a day where we volunteer in our community as a school. Another day was an active shooter training by an outside company...etc. There have been one or two where I am totally bored. They do not make me participate in the PD "classes" on those days, but I have to be here. I use it to work on paperwork uninterrupted, usually.

We have 70+ nurses in the district so we have our own PD days with nursing topics. Our nursing coordinator plans it. Out of the 6 or 7 PD days thru the year we usually meet for at least 5 of them - if we don't meet it is considered a "work day" and we have to work in our clinics using that time to get caught up with paperwork or with whatever we need to do on our campus. We are no longer are required to attend the teacher PD classes.

You'll need to look at your own policy.

Our contract is 187 days. Most of the PD has been planned by the health services manager; we have one day at the end of the year to shut things down on campus and one more day after Memorial Day that belongs to health services.

Big nurse group in my very large district, we arrange our own meeting or speaker.

3 hours ago, MHDNURSE said:

I have had to go to all the PDs with the teachers and they NEVER apply to me. I always feel like it is a complete waste of time.

This is my biggest complaint, there are some days that nothing applies to me and I don't want to waste my time and my director is more then willing to get us some different training, I just need to find some topics. She isn't a nurse or even a healthcare professional so it makes it more difficult.

3 hours ago, BunnyBunnyBSNRN said:

First, to answer your question, we (nurses) do not work on every PD day, but there are 2 or 3 that are district wide, and as such, we do participate. The ones I've gone to, one at the start of the year, and one in Nov or Dec, there has been an "everybody session" for 1/2 the day and a "your group session" for the other 1/2. The Health Services (my group) sessions are focused on issues that apply to us either directly - policies, regs, health room issues, etc - or just touchy/feely human stuff - take care of yourself, meditate, don't burn out, etc.

Second, your user name makes me smile. I am an Army wife, so it's nice to find another of my kind here. I feel like it's rare since we move around so much, it's hard to get into school nursing, and then as soon as we do, we move again and have to try all over. I'm happy your here with me!

Hahaha and I am NOT moving again! I have the perfect balance. I work in the school district .7 and I work PRN in the ER, which is what I did before the school nurse job. I love the balance I get by working both jobs :) Who usually provides those classes? Self care would be a good one. We don't have many policies in our district per say, we follow OSPI in our state (WA). I might add that we have monthly meetings that cover topics of health room issues, etc. Thanks for your response!

Our school district is rather large, so we have over 100 nurses and clinic assistants, so we have our own professional development days. These days are all geared twords nursing issues. I look forward to them to get to see the other nurses.

Our PD is rather strange - I work at a small private school with two campuses and each campus has a nurse and counselor. On PD days, the teachers have a full schedule of meetings and trainings provided by the school, but none of it is applicable to the health/wellness staff. So sometimes, we actually present to the teachers (stress coping strategies for students, how to use EPI pen etc) but usually we just meet privately at a Starbucks and gossip. I can't say it's the worst, but I'd rather have a half-day lol