I am a school nurse working primarily as a 1:1 and I'm a relatively new grad in graduate school. I have a severe special ed class on site who has 4-6 aides. They had a new one transfer in to work with this close knit group. She is 67 years old and this is far to strenuous a job for her. There was an incident of questionable judgment regarding her handling of one of the children.I didn't see it, but now all the aides hate her and won't help her and this is far too strenuous a job for her to do by herself. The teacher thinks this aide was dumped on her and the district wants to fire her which made the the teacher uncomfortable and she did not want this on her conscience.
As a good Public Health Nurse, I offered to help. I said I could discuss with the aide the physical limitations of her job and if she needed any accomadation. Then I could take the pulse of the other aides as well, to see if the new aide was performing inappropriately and putting the children at risk. The teacher agreed to this plan.
It went well and it didn't. The new aide appreciated the offer as she has no friends, but the old aides felt my talking to her and to them was over stepping my duties as a nurse and they complained to everyone about it.
I got a wrist slap from the teacher who originally gave me permission and even put my intervention in the corrective plan for the aide. I wrote an apology and said I will not discuss it again. But it caused me some degree of anxiety as I'm only a temporary hire and I'd really like to keep this job.
But then I realized my intervention was actually effective! :) Now all the aides can band together and whine about "that interfering school nurse" and go back to helping each other for the benefit of the children.
Seriously, I'll have to wait out the repercussions of how far up the line their whining went though and I learned my lesson. I'm concerned about the children, their health and welfare and anything that interferes with that. The teacher will have to manage her own staff. These types of things are political minefields that are apt to get one fired.
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This is just a vent.
I am a school nurse working primarily as a 1:1 and I'm a relatively new grad in graduate school. I have a severe special ed class on site who has 4-6 aides. They had a new one transfer in to work with this close knit group. She is 67 years old and this is far to strenuous a job for her. There was an incident of questionable judgment regarding her handling of one of the children.I didn't see it, but now all the aides hate her and won't help her and this is far too strenuous a job for her to do by herself. The teacher thinks this aide was dumped on her and the district wants to fire her which made the the teacher uncomfortable and she did not want this on her conscience.
As a good Public Health Nurse, I offered to help. I said I could discuss with the aide the physical limitations of her job and if she needed any accomadation. Then I could take the pulse of the other aides as well, to see if the new aide was performing inappropriately and putting the children at risk. The teacher agreed to this plan.
It went well and it didn't. The new aide appreciated the offer as she has no friends, but the old aides felt my talking to her and to them was over stepping my duties as a nurse and they complained to everyone about it.
I got a wrist slap from the teacher who originally gave me permission and even put my intervention in the corrective plan for the aide. I wrote an apology and said I will not discuss it again. But it caused me some degree of anxiety as I'm only a temporary hire and I'd really like to keep this job.
But then I realized my intervention was actually effective! :) Now all the aides can band together and whine about "that interfering school nurse" and go back to helping each other for the benefit of the children.
Seriously, I'll have to wait out the repercussions of how far up the line their whining went though and I learned my lesson. I'm concerned about the children, their health and welfare and anything that interferes with that. The teacher will have to manage her own staff. These types of things are political minefields that are apt to get one fired.