Questions about school nursing

momnurse23 · Apr 19, 2011

i am not in sc. i'm in georgia, but i'll anwer anyway.

what are your hours at work? 7:30-3:30

would you mind sharing your salary and if it's for 12 months or just the school year? approx. $23,000 divided over 12 months so we get a check in the summer too. (i'm an rn but lpn's can be school nurses in my district and we're all paid the same)

do you work during the summer else where? no

how long were you a nurse before you started school nursing? (experience) 3 years in home health and family clinic

was this a hard field to get into? what steps did you take? i was very blessed. i heard about the opening from another school employee. i had 1 interview with the principal and ap and heard back the next day.

what do you do and do you have an assistant? i do not have an assistant. i see on average 35-40 students each day. about 15 are for routine medications (mostly adhd meds), the rest are for first aid for playground injuries, various c/o stomachache, headache, sore throat, etc. i have previously had diabetic students but do not this year. i keep up with care plans, immunizations, hearing and vision screenings, etc. i teach cpr to staff.

do you have your own office? yes

do you get a lunch break? i eat at my desk. i know i should officially take a lunch break but i just end up getting called back to the clinic so it's just easier to stay there. i'm thinking next year i'll work on this. i'm beginning to feel a little resentful that i can't eat a bowl of soup w/o it getting cold or salad w/o it getting soggy.

do you have to stay for meetings like teachers do? i have not had to stay late for any meetings. i do attend meetings such as ihp meetings but they are during the school day and someone just has to cover for me. the nurses in our district also meet a few times each year, but again that is during the regular school day. i do stay late once a year during open house to answer questions from parents and hand out forms as needed.

what school do you work in (elementary, middle, high school, etc)? elementary

what's your least favorite thing(s) about this job? honestly, it's the hours. i love the time with my family. but i also very much enjoy what i do. i tend to be a mothering kind of nurse and generally do not get frustrated by all the little things i see kids for...i don't mind giving a band-aid and a little tlc for a paper cut...that being said, i do have days where it wears on me especially when it's the same little child i've seen 3 times that week. i love being the resident medical expert. i love the independence of this job. i love that i must always be "on" because things could turn in a minute...you can go all day 1 day and only see vague stomachaches and scraped knees and the next a child has a seizure and another chokes on his hotdog at lunch.

if you could do it over again, would you still be a school nurse? absolutely !!!

sparrowRN · Apr 22, 2011

I would be interested in hearing some more responses too.

Heidi the nurse, BSN, RN · Apr 23, 2011

what are your hours at work? i arrive 1 hour before the students and leave 1/2 hour after they leave (same as the teachers). two of my 3 schools start at the same time, so at one school the hours are 8 to 3:30, the other two are 8:30 to 4.

would you mind sharing your salary and if it's for 12 months or just the school year? i am on the teachers scale - with a bsn + 90 credits i make almost as much as a master's prepared teacher. it varies - this year we are supposed to be getting a 3% pay cut. the contract is 180 days or so, paid over the whole 12 month. i make about 4k per month - take home is alot less though!

do you work during the summer else where? i don't anymore, but did the first year because i started in march so didn't make very much over the summer. we also have a week or two of summer institute in my district for continuing education, and the hospitals and one of the nursing schools has continuing ed classes geared toward school nurses, so it seems our summers are pretty short.

how long were you a nurse before you started school nursing? (experience) 15 years

was this a hard field to get into? what steps did you take? i took a "intro to school nursing" class from one of the universities. the instructor was also the head nurse in my district. my getting the job didn't have anything to do with taking the course, but help me know where to look.

what do you do and do you have an assistant? we have a health assistant in each school. we rarely do any of the basic bandages and day to day running of the health office. we write and implement care plans, do special education assessments, give training to staff and students, oversee immunizations and those kind of administrative things. we have lpn's in buildings that need a full time nurse (our diabetics and kids with diastat are at satellite schools)

do you have your own office? i have a space, but in one building its in the office's work room (like where all the copy machines are) - the other two i share with ot, pt, the school psych. but at least i have moved out of the storage closet :)

do you get a lunch break? i make sure i do :) if there is an emergency, no, but i don't have a set time so can go whenever i want. just last week my kids missed their bus (i live quite near the school) so took my lunch an hour after i got to work to get them to school :). my 8th grader also goes to an after school chess club at one of my elementary schools - i leave there at 2:30 to pick him up. and my day is over at 3:30, although on chess club day i am always there until the games end.

do you have to stay for meetings like teachers do? i don't go to staff meetings. we do have a weekly meeting of our special ed. team where where the sped assessment decision is made and results given. i usually attend those, but they usually are within our work day hours.

what school do you work in (elementary, middle, high school, etc)? 3 elementary and 1 preschool.

what's your least favorite thing(s) about this job? i love working with the kids and staff. i am getting really tired of all the stupid rules and stuff that comes down from "on high" from people who don't have a clue what they are talking about.

if you could do it over again, would you still be a school nurse? i don't know. up until this year i would have answered enthusiastically yes. but things have happened, lawsuites were settled, and now we have all kinds of stupid things we need to do. i am thinking of getting out of nursing altogether now - our teacher of the visually impaired came to one of our nurses meetings not too long ago and the information he gave but a really big bug in my ear. either that or i am going to go back to get an arnp. i'm burned out and don't see an end to what is going on in my district.

shellfrmmo, ASN, BSN, MSN, CNA, LPN, LVN, RN · Apr 26, 2011

state? missouri

what are your hours at work? 730-320

would you mind sharing your salary and if it's for 12 months or just the school year? $29,546 for 186 days (can opt for 10 month or 12 month check) so its 21.18/hour

do you work during the summer else where? yes prn

how long were you a nurse before you started school nursing? (experience) cna 4 years, lpn/lvn 13 years, rn 1 year

was this a hard field to get into? what steps did you take? nope just applied for an open position

what do you do and do you have an assistant? wow we do a lot more than i expected: tube feeding, asthma, diabetics, concussions, minor injury... i do have an lpn that assists. we see an average of 80+ students a day. i also do individualized health plans, attend 504 meetings, track and report on immunizations, do vision screenings, scoliosis screenings, assist with dental screenings, puberty film and education. we have several students with seizure ihp's that we have to be prepared for, routine medications. really there is a lot to school nursing.

do you have your own office? i share my health office with the lpn

do you get a lunch break? yes, 30min

do you have to stay for meetings like teachers do? not after school. our students get out an hour early on fridays. sometimes we have nurses meetings during that time. otherwise we just do catch up work in the office. we do not stay for the staff meetings.

what school do you work in (elementary, middle, high school, etc)? middle school (5th-7th grade 1047 students)

what's your least favorite thing(s) about this job? frequent flyers that just want out of class and/or call mom and she always picks them up even when the student is faking it.

if you could do it over again, would you still be a school nurse? yes - absolutely

NurseMac · May 18, 2011

Although I did not post this question - thanks for those replies - I was offered a school nursing job today - although I have been an oncology nurse for the last 4 years - but the chance to work in my community is interesting. Just so hard to know whether I should make this change. I don't have pediatric exp - only adult in-patient -- and that really makes me wonder whether I could do kids in a community setting.

Cherry Ames Peds RN · May 21, 2011

i'm from tacoma, wa

what are your hours at work? 8:15-3:45. i work at 3 different elementary schools.

would you mind sharing your salary and if it's for 12 months or just the school year? i'm on the teacher's salary scale. i started fall of 2009 as a school nurse after over 20 years in a variety of pediatric experiences. unfortunately, the state only allows credit for 2 years of past experience, so i took a huge paycut.

do you work during the summer else where? no, but i'd consider it if the right opportunity presented itself!

how long were you a nurse before you started school nursing? (experience) over 20 years in pediatrics (10 years peds med-surg, several years nicu, several years peds case management-discharge planning and ur, several years asthma education, 7 years pediatric pulmonary clinic and 3 years cf coordinator plus a few other assorted shorter jobs with some jobs overlapping). i love to do new things!

was this a hard field to get into? what steps did you take? i didn't find it too hard to get hired except for all the hoops that my district and state make one jump through. there were so many steps that often were redundant, that i'm surprised they are able to hire anyone. i took the state certification course the summer after my first year.

what do you do and do you have an assistant? i am the only nurse for 3 elementary schools, 2 of which have spec. ed. preschools. i am responsible for about 1300 students. i have a health clerk for a few hours at each school on the days i am not there (when she isn't pulled to do recess duty, etc). i am responsible for care plans, medication management and administration, training office staff, teachers and health clerks for student health needs, doing the health info for spec ed evals, some vision and hearing screening, plus all the general health room visits. i see between 15 and 45 students/day in the health room. i teach a few classes: dental health for 1st graders, puberty and hiv prevention for 5th and occasionally something else. fortunately my district has diabetics go to specific schools with a full time nurse, so i don't have to manage that.

do you have your own office? yes, in fact i have 3.:) however, one of them is little more than a desk and computer next to a health room cot. :eek:

do you get a lunch break? not really. no one wants to relieve me and i find it easier to just quickly heat up my food and then eat between health room visitors. otoh, i rarely stay late which is a plus.

do you have to stay for meetings like teachers do? our district has nurse's meetings about once a month which i attend. special ed meetings are held before the school day. i rarely have to stay after school for meetings.

what school do you work in (elementary, middle, high school, etc)? three elementary schools, 2 of which have spec. ed preschools.

what's your least favorite thing(s) about this job? parents who don't want to pick up sick kids, parents you cannot reach to pick up sick kids. also, sometimes there is too much down time.

if you could do it over again, would you still be a school nurse? for now, i am enjoying it. i hope to start my master's in the fall and it seems like it will be a good job to work at while i go to school.

heartflutter, ADN, BSN · May 22, 2011

I'm definitely interested in hearing more too. :)

momnurse23 · May 23, 2011

"what's your least favorite thing(s) about this job? honestly, it's the hours. i love the time with my family. but i also very much enjoy what i do. i tend to be a mothering kind of nurse and generally do not get frustrated by all the little things i see kids for...i don't mind giving a band-aid and a little tlc for a paper cut...that being said, i do have days where it wears on me especially when it's the same little child i've seen 3 times that week. i love being the resident medical expert. i love the independence of this job. i love that i must always be "on" because things could turn in a minute...you can go all day 1 day and only see vague stomachaches and scraped knees and the next a child has a seizure and another chokes on his hotdog at lunch."

obviously i can't read. that's my favorite part, not least favorite. i too find my least favorite part is not being able to reach parents or have them tell me they have no way to come pick up a sick child.

Artistyc1 · May 24, 2011

I love the kids, and I love my job; but sometimes its the staff that can make you crazy. In my building, it is the aides. It seems on some days, everyone and anyone has a better idea of how you should be doing your job than you do. They all know that a child must go home, even though you may know more about a kids social situation that makes you think a bit harder before sending him home than meets THEIR eyes.(if they vomited, it is a MUST, in their eyes, even though you know that GI pain and stress is an everyday occurrence in some little lives!) If you don't give an ice pack because you see no bump or bruise, you should have. If you don't put bandaids over scabbed up areas, you should have. I make a very sincere effort to avoid telling anyone else how to do their jobs, but it appears that mine is always fair game. :coollook:

ahintonRN · May 25, 2011

Thank you for this post! I'm a new graduate and have been working Med/Surg as a tech 2 years, as an RN 4 months. I HATE it! Med/Surg has made me almost quit nursing all together. Lately I've had this bright idea that I'd like to be a school nurse.. not sure where it came from. There is an opening in my area. Should I try or is it too soon? By the time I start (If I got the job) I would have my ACLS and PALS certifications.

Sl1011 · May 25, 2011

Thank you for this post! I'm a new graduate and have been working Med/Surg as a tech 2 years, as an RN 4 months. I HATE it! Med/Surg has made me almost quit nursing all together. Lately I've had this bright idea that I'd like to be a school nurse.. not sure where it came from. There is an opening in my area. Should I try or is it too soon? By the time I start (If I got the job) I would have my ACLS and PALS certifications.

I am in the same boat almost. I'm 3 months into my job on the med surg floor and don't like it. I don't like going into work, and I want to transfer to another floor. I need another year of exPerience before I can work as a school nurse