SO many school nurse positions available right now

[MHDNURSE]

It's crazy, it took me forever to find a job as a school nurse in 2015 and I finally found one. Now my current (new in September) position was a lucky find, but all of a sudden I am seeing seriously every school district (including the one where I work) within 25 miles is desperate for school nurses. I have been emailed and cold called from a recruiter about open positions as well. I'm sure if I were unemployed I would never find a job, LOL. I am in MA by the way, just North of Boston. Oh, and my old school called me b/c the nurse they hired to replace me isn't coming back...are you seeing similar trends where you work?

[BeenThereGoingThere, BSN, RN]

Wait....1:450 or 500 students? I have 1800. Where is everyone located?

[BHS Nurse]

I’m south of Ft Wayne In .. I have over 1100 students. Pre-K -8 th grade . Hourly paid , no holiday or summer pay ..would like some input from other school nurses that are salary...?

[AutumnDraidean]

A district in northern NYS mentioned a pay rate to me of 25k plus top notch health insurance. then they picked someone else LOL! (A retired ER nurse, not sure I blame them.)

NYS would love to see masters prepared school nurse teachers in most schools. you would then be on the certified teacher wage scale, starting around 50k depending on the district and the union contract. I guess big and wealthy districts typically have one such person supervising a small team. most districts up here apply for, and get a waiver to hire a plain RN.

Districts around here pay their own subs $75-125 a day. They have a cumbersome application process in many cases and are always short on subs. That's why I have my job.

You could call me an agency sub, Only the agency is a little critical access hospital. The schools pay ~$300 a day and I'm on union scale wages, as in hospital RN level.

Vacancies for full time school nurses are rare here, when they happen they are due to retirement, or a position opening up closer to someone's home.

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

Are you saying $25K with a Master's degree? I would definitely consider that a "retirement job"! Even $50K is low with a Master's!

[AutumnDraidean]

On 2/18/2020 at 9:11 AM, 2BS Nurse said:

Are you saying $25K with a Master's degree? I would definitely consider that a "retirement job"! Even $50K is low with a Master's!

I have no idea if the retired ER nurse has a masters or not, but the district she works for has a waiver, They likely can't afford a school nurse teacher. there are only about 300 kids pre-K to 12th grade. Schools that do hire school nurse teachers do pay on the same scale as the teachers so starting would be ~50K.

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

Is a "school nurse teacher" a nurse who has her own classroom of students? I've never heard of this job description.

[AutumnDraidean]

It's usually a BSN plus an education masters. Some teach health classes. Someone in Albany decided this would be a good requirement.

I know someone who was laid off for not having the ed master's in spite of 20 years of experience. Of course there is always another side to the story...

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

On 2/15/2020 at 11:59 PM, BeenThereGoingThere said:

Wait....1:450 or 500 students? I have 1800. Where is everyone located?

New Hampshire

480 ish HS

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

1 hour ago, AutumnDraidean said:

It's usually a BSN plus an education masters. Some teach health classes. Someone in Albany decided this would be a good requirement.

I know someone who was laid off for not having the ed master's in spite of 20 years of experience. Of course there is always another side to the story...

This is unusual I haven't heard of this in the Midwest. How would you have time to teach AND care for students?? They must be supervising health room "aides". It would be fun to teach a health course though!

[AutumnDraidean]

New York is heavily regulated and heavily taxed, It's said of New Hampshire that there's a tax behind every rock and tree. Here I'd say that there is a regulation behind every rock and tree, upstate has PLENTY of all three!