School Nurse Pay

It definitely depends on the district and the contract. If they have nurses under the paraprofessional umbrella, pay is significantly lower. In our district, we are on a teachers contract so we are on the same step scale as teachers. Until the pandemic, a minimum of BSN was required. They dropped that requirement in order to get nurses into school this year, so ADN nurses are here, but enjoy the same contract as the BSNs and teachers.  

I suspect that will change, and the ADNs hired will be grandfathered, and the requirement will go back to BSN.  

Wife is a school nurse in DE. She's an RN with a Master's degree. On the same pay scale as the teachers...with her degree and years of experience she makes $70k/yr...a year being from late August to mid June. She enjoys having off the weekends and holidays

On 6/9/2021 at 7:56 AM, sleepwalker said:

Wife is a school nurse in DE. She's an RN with a Master's degree. On the same pay scale as the teachers...with her degree and years of experience she makes $70k/yr...a year being from late August to mid June. She enjoys having off the weekends and holidays

That is how it's done where I live.  The main school district prefers master's degrees

I meant to add in my earlier post that generally speaking, the nurses in my district move up a "step" each year (this year, I think because of covid, I was granted a 2-step increase). This equates to an increase in pay. There are 15 steps, and when you reach the top, there is a cost of living raise (which everyone gets, but its worth more the higher the step you're on) and once you reach 20, 25, and 30 years of service, there is an additional longevity pay out each year (which increases at those time increments).

I am starting as a school nurse this August too.  I will  make $38000, half of my hospital income!  I am doing this to be on the same schedule as my teen.  

I was a school nurse in South Georgia.  We were not a teacher's pay scale.  Pay was quite low.  You can see salaries on open Georgia dot gov (just Google).  It is quite eye opening.  Good luck!

I live in the eastern part of the US in a very rural area. Starting out here is around $38,000/yr. After 19 years I'm up to a whopping $50,000. I will retire at around $55,000 if I stay with it. Our contract is for 200 days but we only work 180 of those. It's like $35/hr for the actual hourly rate of the days I work. So if you think of it like a part time job it's better money. LOL!

Well, I think there is a worthwhile trade-off for me. I am liking this job so far. The schools are such a different environment than the hospital, and I come home not exhausted. The schedule is so nice for my family!  I can always pick up some hours in the Summer doing something else. Or maybe I will just live a little more frugally...yeah that one. 

When I started I made about 44k a year, then they gave everybody raises and our "steps" increased our pay tremendously is you had a Bachelor's. 

Now we got another raise and I will be earning about 57k , 5 years in. It really isn't bad pay. Especially since I have all my holidays off. 

Depending on where you work they pay you more if you have an RN vs LPN or Bachelors VS Associates ect. 

I would ask if this is your situation.