MHDNURSE

If this is a public school district and the nurse salary is on the district pay scale, there is zero wiggle room. As the PP said, salaries are budgeted a year in advance. The wiggle room comes from getting the school to be willing to move you down the pay scale step-wise, or across columns based on experience. For example, some districts might be willing to accept all your RN experience over the years as well as your assets so you are on a higher level on the pay scale, thus earning more than say a newer less experienced nurse. Some districts won't budge. I would have a conversation with the HR person or the Nurse Leader and see if they are able to do that since they won't be able to just pay you more. Does this make sense?

I am not clear if you mean District Lead Nurse/Nursing Supervisor, or you mean a school nurse that would cover an entire district and travel from school to school. They are very different. What the above poster described is Nurse Leader who supervises all the school nurses. It is an exhausting practically 24/7 job- at least for our Lead Nurse, especially with Covid. She takes calls/texts all weekend long and not by choice. She spends a lot of time putting out fires, attending administrative meetings, interviewing, covering schools when she cannot find coverage, planning our professional development days, disciplining when necessary...she gets paid well (three figures) but I would never want her job. She works year round and gets 5 weeks paid time off but then never feels like she can use it. The other scenario is a nurse who travels from school to school to essentially cover the district. If this is what you are describing, then I would hope there is some sort of orientation program and time to familiarize yourself with each school. I know in my state (MA) there are requirements for number of nurses per building depending on the number of students in the school. Some states either do not have those rules or just can't hire to those standards because there are not enough nurses to go around. There are some nurses here who do this and spend certain days in certain schools or travel from school to school for a few hours each day.

Here is a pocket manual: https://www.amazon.com/Fast-Facts-School-Nurse-Third/dp/0826174140/ Definitely poke around on the internet- there is some good stuff out there from other school districts.

Curious for any of you who have recently dropped the mask mandate (or do not have one), how things are going? The governor announced yesterday that as of March 1, schools no longer need to mandate masks for students, though individual school districts are allowed to decide what they want to do. The district where my kids go dropped the mandate as of 2/7 due to the >80% Vaccine rate (their schools both have >90%). The district where I work which is right next door to where I live has a much lower rate of vaccination, so I imagine we will be keeping the mask mandate active through the end of the school year the way things are going now. Interestingly, the city itself will be dropping the mask mandate as well as the vaccine mandate for businesses March 1 so it is interesting that the schools will continue with the active mandate. Anyway, I was just curious how things are in your schools and if life has gotten a little better or if it has made things harder. Our district will continue to do twice weekly pool testing as well as weekly take-home tests for all students and staff.

If you go to Youtube I can see several on there ?

I think it is all about the school culture and being clear about your boundaries. I have gotten MUCH better about shutting OFF my work cell the minute I step out the door and not turning it back on until I enter the building. I also no longer check emails outside of school hours. I think COVID has pushed people over the edge and suddenly everything is an emergency. I think if you are clear, firm, and consistent about boundaries they will learn.

The local police station takes all of ours. They have specific rules- like pills need to be out of the bottles and all dumped into one plastic bag, etc. Each nurse made sure everything was done correctly with another nurse and nurse leader as a witness and then we took them to the police station.

THIS

My supervisor is our District Lead Nurse. HER supervisor is a new position that was created this year and so far none of us can understand why this new person would supervise the Lead Nurse. The role is not clinical, the person in the role is a total micromanager with zero clinical or public health knowledge, it is terrible.

Experiencing ALL the same stuff in my district. All of it. I am so tired of feeling like the mask police, especially with the adults in there building. Grow the F up and follow the rules. Seriously.

I had one like that a couple weeks ago. The kid was part of a positive pool so we grabbed all the kids to rapid them and figure out who was +. Kid comes down and is coughing and sniffling and says he woke up like that. That + line appeared almost immediately, even before the control line.

Interesting you posted this as we have always gone by the 24 hour rule (plus fever-free) and just a couple weeks ago my friend's daughter was Dx'd with strep and her MD wrote a note to return 12 hours after antibiotics. This is definitely a new trend. All the data I am finding is still saying 24 hours so I am not sure what the local peds folks are reading to suddenly change from 24 to 12, but it is definitely a trend.

Do you have a link? Scoured that website and can't find it. Thanks.

Hello, I also posted a similar thread in the School nurse forum since I am a school nurse, but thinking some public health/community nurses here might be able to help. I am looking for a resource to translate immunizations from Brazil into English. I am not finding anything that is clear and easy to use on line. Does anyone have anything they use? Specifically I am translating immunization records submitted by Brazilian families to enroll their children in school and it is really hard to figure out what immunizations they have.

A bunch of us here in my district took it last March and a few over the Summer and we ALL thought the same thing and all of us passed! One of my colleagues ended up taking it at the same time and place as I did totally unbeknownst to either of us until we arrived. We met up after for drinks and were discussing and we both were convinced we failed. So many weird topics/questions. Anyway, don't be discouraged, we were all pleasantly surprised with our passing results and you likely will be as well!