Depending on where you are in the country, and even district to district, the life a school nurse is different. In my district, there is a FT nurse in every school, and 2 in the high school. I am salaried and on the teacher's contract, soon to be in the teacher's union as well. If I were to break down my salary to an hourly rate, it is comparable to a hospital-based floor nurse on day shift with my same experience. The biggest reason the pay discrepancy is so great for me, is because we generally get a ton of vacation time. In my district, we generally get around 10days at the holidays, a week in February, a week in April, and 9 weeks of Summer off, plus all federal and state holidays (Labor Day, Veterans Day, Columbus Day, President's Day, Patriot's Day (a Massachusetts thing), and Memorial Day).
Since you've been working in schools in your area, you know what the atmosphere is like. The biggest thing I like to tell aspiring school nurses is to get a feel for the job before jumping in. It is a whole different ball game than hospital/LTC nursing. You may want to get some floor nursing under your belt once you have that RN degree, as one thing I have heard is that a lot of hospitals won't count school nursing as experience if you decide to transition. So if you have it under your belt before your start in a school and find out you're not into it, you at least have that hospital experience to fall back on! Plus, it looks real good on a resume for applying to school positions!
Good Luck!
