substitutes?

[schoolnurse09]

My district keeps a few substitute nurses in the system, but if we should need them it is up to us to call them to cover our schools. For some absences, we cover each other -there are 2 high school nurses, and 7 junior high and elementary nurses. All schools have a full time Health Para. Many times, the substitutes are not available for us.... IMO, the district should take care of this, as it does with teachers. We are on a teacher's contract, so why are we not afforded the same sick / personal time coverage that they are ? In general, the attitude of the district is mostly pretty disrespectful to the nurses. How is this handled at your schools ?

[guest83140]

We are having the same problem. Many of the RN subs quit so we have only one to cover 7-8 RNS. They quit because they saw long term contracts either with another school, maternity leave or home care. I know they can't sit around waiting on us to take a day off but we should pool with a larger district or something. But they can't have us in the Teacher's Pool because a person would be knowledgeable in CPR and first aide. The school would be sued if a regular teacher sat in the Clinic and didn't know what to do for an emergency situation. Oh well, at least we know we are needed.

[luvschoolnursing, LPN]

I try not to get sick. Seriously, though, it seems to be a universal problem. There just aren't that many RN's sitting around waiting to work as subs for the little pay they get. We have kids with 504 plans that say there will always be an RN in the building. I was against writing them like that because there might NOT always be an RN in the building. I have been lucky this year, but 2 years ago, I had pneumonia and my health office sat empty because there was no coverage. Someone unlocked the door to let the diabetics in...