What do you cover with the staff at the beginning of each school year?

[Nurse2Kids]

This will be my first year as a school nurse, so obviously I'll be introducing myself, but I wanted some ideas of other things you feel are pertinent to discuss with staff before the students come back.

This school has never had a nurse in the past, so is accustomed to taking care of things without a nurse, which they've done very well.

I want to stress the importance of nurse passes for the little ones, discuss what can be cared for in the classroom, provide them with some bandaids/gloves and hall pass tickets, and improve our emergency bags for each classroom.

I do NOT want to have a negative impact on them, so any positive encouraging ideas are greatly appreciated.

I know we have to cover blood borne pathogen education, and AED location/use review.

[BrisketRN, BSN, RN]

We cover the basics on diabetes & epilepsy as we have students with these conditions. We have LOTS of allergies and asthma so we go over the basics on those also. Our teachers get first aid trained by an outside organization, so I don't go too in depth with first aid. I do cover what to do for nose bleeds (some teachers have a habit of having a kid catch the blood with their hands and run to my office thus leaving a trail of blood down the hallway--not ideal). I also like to go over what to send to the nurse vs what to take care of in the classroom (don't send me tiny cuts & "I bumped my head on a pillow"). I also remind the teachers to call my office directly if they're unsure about sending a child or in the case of an emergency (rather than sending a student down to get me). This year I printed out labels that said "Nurse: ext. ###" which has helped remind teachers to call me directly.

I would also explain to them that you are there to make THEIR life easier (allowing them to teach and NOT provide medical care). I have a few teachers who try to treat kids more than just a band-aid or something simple and have had issues with safety. It may take a while for them to start allowing you to do your job since they are not used to having a nurse there.

[peacockblue]

We are not expected to speak to the teachers about anything. I went to the beginning of year faculty meeting my first couple years prepared to speak and quickly realized this was not wanted. I do send electronic copies of all the 504 plans to teachers and have them come to my office and sign off, but beyond that, administration doesn't welcome anything else.