SECOND nurses office?!

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Hi all,

Been a while since I have logged in. I decided to take the leap of faith and change districts and although I would never recommend changing jobs in the middle of a pandemic (ha!), I am so happy that I did. I am the THIRD nurse based out of a high school with 2,400 students. We are getting a brand new nurses office, but admin still wants to keep the old office as well-making 2 nurses offices.

Between the 3 of us, we have 1 nurse that stays in the office consistently, the other nurse handles half of the HS IEPs and 504s, while I manage the other half of IEPs for the HS and 2 other schools.

We can't quite figure out how we will manage things. We're concerned about a few things such 1 nurse managing 2 offices if the other 2 of us are in meetings, students playing the system (ie, going between the 2 offices to skip class), communication between the 2 offices. We would love to outline the purpose for each office and we'd like to come up with a workable game plan ourselves before admin decides for us ?

Does anyone work in a school that has 2 nurse offices that could offer us advice? Or even if you don't, we would love any suggestions and any thoughts or impressions of what would and would not work!

I should also add that we're still virtual for the next month and a half, so this is a perfect time that we can work out a procedure and brainstorm before the students come back.

Thanks in advance!

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Specializes in School Nursing.

I don't do this, but the high school I went to had 2 nurse locations on opposite sides of the campus. One was for students A-L and the other was M-Z.  That was 4k students.  In a true emergency that would be on a radio call, both could respond, or whoever was closer could do initial triage and then call for the second nurse if needed.

If a person was at a meeting/lunch/etc, the student would go to the office where the secretary would tell them when to expect the nurse back or get them in more pressing matters.  Essentially, each office was treated the way a single office would be at elementary/middle school.  Independent of each other but could collaborate as needed.

(I've met with my high school nurses as an adult, since we're in the same regional groups, which is hilarious and a little scary when you realize a school nurse recognizes you by face, LOL.  My frequent flyer punchcard must have been pretty full...)

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Specializes in School nursing.
44 minutes ago, LikeTheDeadSea said:

I don't do this, but the high school I went to had 2 nurse locations on opposite sides of the campus. One was for students A-L and the other was M-Z.  That was 4k students.  In a true emergency that would be on a radio call, both could respond, or whoever was closer could do initial triage and then call for the second nurse if needed.

 

It worked the same way when I subbed way back in the day in a very large HS with two nurse's offices. 

Honestly, I think here, one needs to be the "see students" office and the other one is the nurse admin office, holding all the IEP paperwork and perhaps the office that holds the extra bonus supplies (and stock PPE for staff, etc). 

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Specializes in ICU/community health/school nursing.
1 hour ago, JenTheSchoolRN said:

. 

Honestly, I think here, one needs to be the "see students" office and the other one is the nurse admin office, holding all the IEP paperwork and perhaps the office that holds the extra bonus supplies (and stock PPE for staff, etc). 

This is a great suggestion, for several reasons. Including....if the main office got contaminated or otherwise unusable there is a back up and it's stocked with supplies!

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1 hour ago, JenTheSchoolRN said:

It worked the same way when I subbed way back in the day in a very large HS with two nurse's offices. 

Honestly, I think here, one needs to be the "see students" office and the other one is the nurse admin office, holding all the IEP paperwork and perhaps the office that holds the extra bonus supplies (and stock PPE for staff, etc). 

Thank you everybody for your input! We appreciate it! And having one "seeing student" office and one "administration" office I think is our vision. While I was technically hired to only focus on IEPs, I am certainly not going to leave the other nurses high and dry. That got me thinking that we all should have desks in the "see student" office and then an extra desk in the administration office to provide a quiet space to write IEPs/interview parents, conduct hearing and vision screenings, etc.

Thanks again!

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Specializes in LPN School Nurse.

We are a two nurse building, but it's split functionally.    The main nurse runs a clinic that sees most of the patient care stuff.   I'm in the administrative office suite and handle most of the paperwork (IEP, IHP, iDP, 501) and discipline matters (which has a small amount of clinical).    Of course, we cross fill for each other in case of absence/emergencies and its sort of "all hands" when we're doing things like temperature screens on arriving staff/students in the current covid era.

 

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I run 2 clinics in an elementary school this year. It has been very difficult and stressful at times since I’m the only nurse in my building. My clinic is where I give meds, treatments, see injuries, bloody noses...
  If a student has any symptoms that could be related to any illness the teacher calls me. I go to the classroom and do a basic assessment in the hallway. From there I take them to the isolation clinic if I can’t rule their symptoms out. 
 This is to try to keep the clinic “clean” It works out okay until I don’t have any help and am needed for other students at the same time. I just do my best...

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I work at a high school with around 2400 students and we have 2 separate nurse offices. We used to just alternate medications that came in and whoever got that student would do that iep, 504, or ihp. Our phone lines are joined meaning that I can see all the extension calls and whenever she goes to lunch, I answer those calls. We split the classrooms up and downstairs by proximity with half going both ways. I have file cabinets for half the grades as she does. I have a walkie talkie as she does for communication by phone or walkie. I have a printer and copier as she does. The counselors or staff usually cc us both on emails. We try to alternate incoming calls. Hope this helps.

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Specializes in Elementary School Nurse.

We have over 1700 students. PreK -12th grade. We  are on a one campus setting. We have a nurse at the high school with about 500+ students, and I have prek-8 with approx. over 1100 students. I have over 20 on meds and 4 diabetics. It can be busy at times. This year we hired a sub to do PRN and help with the hearing screens, Immunizations ect. So far it it working out. This is my second year here. I just requested to be put on salary. Do any of you school nurses get salary? Or is it hourly. I get paid 25.78/hr and only work when in school is in session. Any nurses thoughts???

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Specializes in School Health.
On 1/28/2021 at 11:01 AM, linderl said:

We have over 1700 students. PreK -12th grade. We  are on a one campus setting. We have a nurse at the high school with about 500+ students, and I have prek-8 with approx. over 1100 students. I have over 20 on meds and 4 diabetics. It can be busy at times. This year we hired a sub to do PRN and help with the hearing screens, Immunizations ect. So far it it working out. This is my second year here. I just requested to be put on salary. Do any of you school nurses get salary? Or is it hourly. I get paid 25.78/hr and only work when in school is in session. Any nurses thoughts???

I am by myself in a K-8 school, I have 1 office.  At my previous school I was paid salary.  At my current school I am hourly and paid 16.48/hr for the hours that I work (if I come in during breaks or Summer I am paid for my time).

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

$16.48? Wow!

 

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On 1/28/2021 at 10:01 AM, linderl said:

We have over 1700 students. PreK -12th grade. We  are on a one campus setting. We have a nurse at the high school with about 500+ students, and I have prek-8 with approx. over 1100 students. I have over 20 on meds and 4 diabetics. It can be busy at times. This year we hired a sub to do PRN and help with the hearing screens, Immunizations ect. So far it it working out. This is my second year here. I just requested to be put on salary. Do any of you school nurses get salary? Or is it hourly. I get paid 25.78/hr and only work when in school is in session. Any nurses thoughts???

I'm paid salary, and I am contracted to work each day students are in the building for class plus 10 staff training days annually.  We do not have Summer school, but we do have Summer camp & camps over Spring/Winter breaks.  I could work camps as a supervisor of children if I chose to do so (I don't), in which case I believe the pay is $500/week for 8am-5pm.

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