This College Nurse Explains How Her Work Goes Past ‘Band-Aids, Boo-Boos and Head Lice’

Stone is aware of that well being isn’t solely vital to an individual’s well-being, it’s important to their studying and tutorial success too. That’s why faculty nurses, she says, are key to serving to college students get — and keep — “classroom-ready.”

For our Function Name collection, we function people in conventional faculty roles which are typically misunderstood or missed, pulling again the curtain on what their work seems to be like and the way they assist form the day for teenagers. On this installment, we discuss with Eva Stone about faculty nursing.

The next interview has been calmly edited and condensed for readability.

EdSurge: How did you get right here? What introduced you to your position?

Eva Stone: After I first bought out of faculty, I labored in an ICU for some time, and I made a decision I wished to be doing one thing that was extra on the proactive facet. I wished to assist forestall individuals from ending up in ICU and with the persistent circumstances that that they had. That is what led me to public well being.

Means again when my kids had been small, I used to be supervising well being providers for a well being division, and a faculty nursing job got here open within the neighboring county. I wished some extra time in the summertime with my youngsters, and so I moved into that position. That’s what began it, after which I simply fell in love with it.

My mother is a retired nurse and my dad is a retired principal, so it was sort of the perfect of each professions. I used to spend summers serving to my dad ship issues to lecture rooms when all of the orders got here in, and so I suppose that is the place I developed a love.

[After I became a school nurse], I went again to highschool and have become a nurse practitioner. I did not know that I’d keep working at school well being, however the position, it simply sort of labored. So I began doing extra. I labored in a reasonably small district on the time. We had 10 faculties, and I used to be capable of do extra with workers, do bus driver physicals and people issues, and be a part of the executive group for the district. I simply fell in love with faculty well being and the alternatives that we have now to influence college students.

I labored in that district for a lot of years, then labored in a neighboring county, labored between each of the counties and bought my doctorate diploma, after which landed this place in Louisville. We did not stay within the Louisville space, however two individuals reached out to me about making use of for that place. And so I believed, ‘Possibly that may be a signal that I have to test it out,’ and ended up coming to Jefferson County Public Faculties.

In fact that was earlier than the pandemic, so it has been an fascinating trip. However there’s simply such unbelievable alternative in faculties that no different entity within the well being discipline will get to see. And that’s, you are in an setting the place you see the household — or you do not see the household, which is telling — and also you see the kid all through the entire day. You simply have entry to issues that well being care suppliers in medical settings outdoors of faculties actually do not have.

There’s simply such an unbelievable alternative, firstly, to assist kids succeed educationally, which is an important factor we will do for his or her long-term well being. However then to assist train them self-management of persistent diseases, to assist establish psychological well being circumstances early, so many ways in which we will contact kids’s lives and their households’ lives. Once more, in our discipline, it is all boiling all the way down to serving to a toddler get by way of faculty efficiently.

So you’re feeling like a part of the attract and the reward of being within the faculty setting, for nursing, is simply being extra proactive than reactive?

Sure, nevertheless it’s additionally serving to households to navigate well being care. Our well being care system may be very complicated, and the extra technologically superior we have develop into, the extra we have left loads of households behind. If I’ve to name a clinician, I am calling a central quantity they usually ask me 10 inquiries to get me to the fitting particular person. If I’ve a language barrier, if I’ve an schooling barrier, if I’ve a poverty barrier, which means I solely have so many minutes on my telephone, all of these issues make it difficult to entry the well being care system because it’s develop into in the US. College nursing is a chance to satisfy households the place they’re and assist them get the care that they want.

When individuals outdoors of faculty ask you what you do, how do you describe your work?

I inform them that I work at school nursing, and if it is in the summertime, they all the time say, ‘Oh, nicely you’ve got the summers off then,’ or, ‘What do you do within the summers?’ I chuckle after I say that as a result of lots of people assume faculty nurses simply have a straightforward job. College nursing is a novel sort of nursing. It’s totally specialised, and other people simply do not realize that.

So I inform individuals what I do is I get to make a distinction within the lives of kids and households and assist work towards setting a trajectory of their lives, that we have now the chance to take them out of poverty, to vary the course of what the remainder of their lives will appear to be. And that faculty nursing is essential work.

What do you would like you would say to them?

What I wish to say is, ‘Does your baby have a nurse at their faculty? And do these nurses get to apply to the complete scope of their apply? And does your district have kids that are not succeeding academically?’ As a result of if that is the case, then there’s an underlying purpose, and there should be individuals concerned in that work. College nursing is a lot extra than simply the Band-Aids and boo-boos and head lice that folks, for a very long time, have perceived faculty nursing to be.

Do you’re feeling just like the position has advanced to be extra expansive now? Or has there all the time been that false impression?

I feel there’s all the time been that false impression.

When faculty nursing was developed — which was in New York, by Lillian Wald, who was a public well being nurse that made a giant distinction in faculties — it was not designed to be Band-Aids and boo-boos. It was communicable illness. It was preventive care. It was ensuring that kids had been at school. It was doing one thing about attendance when youngsters weren’t at school.

That’s what faculty nursing has all the time been designed to be, however faculty nursing is usually led by educators in districts. And I’ve the utmost respect for educators, however they don’t seem to be nurses. So there are occasions when a faculty nurse’s position has been outlined as Band-Aids, booboos and head lice. But when they’re limiting the work of their faculty nurses to these issues, they’re drastically underutilizing an unbelievable useful resource of their faculties.

You’ve got talked about, just a few instances, the chance to take households out of poverty and alter the course of their lives. May you perhaps say slightly bit extra about how, by way of nursing, you may be capable of try this for a kid or their household?

Say you’ve got a toddler who’s lacking loads of faculty. I am going to use persistent absenteeism as a result of that is such a major subject at this cut-off date. So the kid comes to highschool day by day and is coughing, coughing, coughing, coughing. I’ve truly had academics inform me, ‘Oh yeah, he is been doing that for some time now.’ Effectively, the nurse assesses the coed and says, ‘This kid’s not respiratory actual nicely.’ In order that results in a telephone name with the dad or mum. And in speaking to the dad or mum, there’s all types of issues that you simply discover out. You discover out they do not have medical health insurance, which at the present time ought to by no means be a barrier, nevertheless it’s an unbelievable barrier for households. It could be that this household has grown up with everyone coughing like that, so they do not acknowledge that as irregular.

And so when the nurse will get concerned and begins working with the household and growing these trusting relationships, what you find yourself discovering is the kid has bronchial asthma. He is lacking faculty on a regular basis as a result of he is ‘sick,’ however actually he has bronchial asthma. If I am a toddler dwelling in poverty and I am dwelling in poor housing circumstances the place there’s cockroaches, for instance, that is a major set off for bronchial asthma.

Then you definitely begin this entire cascade of assets and dealing with the household and educating the mother and father on administration of a persistent illness that has considerably been impacting their studying. Now you’ve got the possibility to vary that kid’s faculty attendance, after which you’ve got the possibility to make sure that the kid’s in school and classroom-ready, which on the finish of the day is what each baby must be profitable.

One other instance: Throughout a latest yr, we had over 9,000 elementary college students who failed their imaginative and prescient screenings in school, who had nowhere to go. We’ve no referral sources within the metropolis for teenagers who do not have insurance coverage, or do not have means to have a imaginative and prescient screening or a imaginative and prescient examination or cannot navigate that system. So we partnered with an area basis, some eye medical doctors, and we introduced imaginative and prescient clinics to the faculties.

Within the very first clinic that we had in a faculty, the medical doctors had been fully blown away as a result of these kids’s prescriptions had been so extreme, they usually’d by no means had glasses. Effectively, for those who aren’t studying by third grade — there are states that predict the variety of jail cells they’ll want primarily based on third grade studying ranges. They’re at a drawback from there on out. So is it vital that children can see after they begin faculty they usually begin to study to learn? It is extremely vital, and it will possibly make a distinction of their schooling for the remainder of their faculty years.

Plenty of states have legal guidelines that require this stuff. They require households, for instance, in Kentucky, to have a imaginative and prescient examination earlier than they begin faculty for the primary time. But when I haven’t got the assets to have a imaginative and prescient examination, then I can not go. The intent of the legal guidelines are nice, however till you’ve got the mechanisms in place to make sure that each baby has equal alternative to entry the providers that everyone knows are vital, then each baby dwelling in poverty is at a drawback.

What does a tough day in your position appear to be?

Once we got here again to in-person studying throughout COVID, the district used ESSER funds to place a nurse in each faculty. Now that ESSER funds are gone, our administration determined to proceed that anyway. They’re funding a nurse in each faculty, and we’re truly going to have 15 nurse practitioners out within the faculties shifting ahead, offering bodily well being providers for college kids as a result of there’s such a spot. So a really exhausting day for me is making an attempt to guarantee that the well being wants are being met in 155-plus faculties. When we have now nurses who’re out sick and we have now all these dynamics occurring, that makes for a very exhausting day.

However the boots-on-the-ground stage of that’s simply listening to and assembly youngsters, figuring out what they are going residence to day by day — or not going residence to day by day — and having to acknowledge that I am restricted in what I can do. I do not prefer it, however that’s the manner it’s.

To offer you an instance from final yr, we have now loads of worldwide households, kids who’re new to the US, in our district. We’ve about 20,000 youngsters who’re multilingual learners. Once you hear the tales — youngsters simply will take a look at you and inform you in a matter-of-fact voice what they have been by way of of their life and that they’ve spent most of their years in a refugee camp — whenever you see households which have made these very tough journeys to get their kids right here so their kids have a greater likelihood, they usually come and the kid has diabetes they usually’re rationing insulin, which means the kid’s not handled appropriately as a result of they do not have sufficient medication to deal with the kid appropriately and making an attempt to determine how you can navigate these issues.

I imply, it is simply exhausting. It actually can put on on you after some time as a result of we’re within the twenty first century, and we’re a resource-rich nation. The truth that we have now so many kids going with out fundamental wants — and that features meals — is simply mind-boggling to me.

What does a very good day appear to be?

A very good day seems to be like lastly getting any individual locally to pay attention and interact whenever you discuss in regards to the points that college students are dealing with that you simply simply cannot get any assist with.

Right here’s an instance. So our medical director, when he first began on the native well being division, he wished to satisfy. I sat down with him, and he wished to know: What do you see as points for kids in Louisville, Kentucky, that attend Jefferson County Faculties? So the imaginative and prescient exams — youngsters needing glasses — is what we talked about. He mentioned, ‘I feel I can do one thing about that.’ His background is as an ophthalmologist, so he rallied volunteers, and we labored collectively and we deliberate this primary clinic.

In order that they got here in, and like I discussed, the attention medical doctors had been blown away by the extent of want. However then we scheduled a day to return again and hand kids their glasses — I’ll get emotional. They placed on their glasses, they usually may see issues they’ve by no means seen earlier than. You allow on the finish of the day pondering, ‘Yeah, there’s much more work to do, however we’ll take this win as a result of it is a fairly large one.’

What’s an sudden manner that your position shapes the day for teenagers?

I inform the nurses this on a regular basis: You are going to have college students who come into your workplace as a result of they want your pat [on the back]. You are a nurse, and there’s a respect that’s related to nurses — America’s most trusted skilled for over 20 years. We inform them on a regular basis, ‘Your interplay with kids has the power to form their day. And so you’re the pat that they want.’ They will simply are available and actually all they want is simply any individual to say ‘Howdy,’ and ‘How is your morning going?’ And get them off to class. However perhaps they don’t seem to be getting that want met elsewhere. Possibly they don’t seem to be getting that hug or that smile elsewhere. Nurses — that’s actually what we try to emphasize — make a distinction for each baby.

What do you would like you would change about your faculty district or the schooling system at the moment?

What I’d change is absolutely the popularity that nurses are well being care professionals and that well being care isn’t separate. Well being isn’t separate from a toddler’s tutorial success. So what I’d change in regards to the schooling system on the whole is to make well being foundational, not ancillary, for schooling. Till each baby is classroom-ready day by day, then that kid’s not going to succeed in their full potential.

Your position provides you distinctive entry and perception to at the moment’s youth. What’s one factor you have discovered about younger individuals by way of your work?

It doesn’t matter what is going on, I by no means go away a faculty after being round kids that I do not really feel recharged and rejuvenated. They’re resilient, they’re sensible, they’re passionate, they usually give me such hope for the longer term as a result of I see a knowledge, notably in our younger adults, that perhaps they’ve not all the time seen on this planet round them. We are able to discuss loads about younger individuals and fear — there are loads of points and challenges this era of youngsters is dealing with — however we are the adults. We’re presupposed to stay in a world the place we worth our youngsters and put all their wants first. And I do not see youngsters giving up in that hope. I see youngsters partaking, and I am simply all the time astounded by their resiliency and their smiles and their hugs. It is why I do what I do. They’ve a pleasure that hasn’t been snuffed out, and we have to make them a world the place they’ll proceed to be joyful and wholesome.