School nursing right after nursing school??

[monnelise]

I am interested in school nursing and wonder which of you pursued it right after nursing school. Did you wish you had more experience in a hospital setting first??

Or if you decided to switch from the hospital setting I would also like to know if you felt that experience made a big difference.

Thank you to all who reply.

[WDW1971]

School nursing is a great career. It is interesting working with different types of people, the hours are good, the vacation is nice, and the pay is not bad (esp. when compared to the hours that a teacher works for the same pay). Best of luck to you in your studies, Todie :). Just keep working hard and I'm sure you will be able to achieve your goals.

[GreenWitch]

Thanks for the info! I will have to nose around some and see what I can come up with!

Will your district pay to have a nurse substitute in your clinic? I don't know if all districts will, but most around here will. The trouble is that not many nurses want to substitute. The district I work for pays $80 a day for professional subs. Same as for a substitute teacher, but much less than half of what I made per day full time. It is okay, though, since I am not the primary income source for my family and for occasional work to which I can always say "no" to. But I know that many districts don't pay that much. If I were getting much less than that a day, I probably wouldn't do it. But I am lucky in a way that I can sub in the clinics. I can't even imagine trying to substitute in a classroom full of kids at $80 or less a day.

One option for finding some nurses is to have your school or district put out some kind of notice that you are looking for LVNs/LPNs/RNs to substitute in the school clinics. There might be some stay-at-home parents who are also nurses who wouldn't mind filling in and earning some extra money now and then. Another option is to try to find some retired nurses who want to work occasionally. It is definitely not easy finding substitute nurses.