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In its effort to dig out of a budget crisis, the Juneau School District this year reduced the number of school nurses it employs from ten to eight.
That means Laura Vivian spends the first part of her day at Floyd Dryden Middle School, and midway through it, she gets in her car and drives to Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School, where she works in the afternoon.
Vivian is concerned about students at the four schools that lost their full-time nurses this year, she said.
“What’s going on is I’m so busy at both schools … and I’m a very hard worker, so I’m trying to work through as much as I can … but I’m so overwhelmed with other stuff that I feel like I can’t do my job fully for these kids,” said Vivian.
Riverbend Elementary School and Thunder Mountain High School are also sharing a nurse under the new school nurse plan, which just took effect for the 2012-13 school year.
JSD spokeswoman Kristin Bartlett explained the plan’s genesis.
“The four schools were chosen as a result of an analysis of student needs, input from our school nurses and the physical proximity of schools,” Bartlett wrote in an email. “A new nursing plan was developed with input from school nurses and participation from a local nurse consultant.”
According to student services director Brad Hoyt, nurses have generally been “positive” toward the plan they helped develop earlier this year.
“They’re initially the ones that came up with the proposal of ‘let’s team a number of schools together,’” said Hoyt. He added, “I think the nurses have done a very good job at those four sites.”
But Hoyt’s optimism about the nurse-sharing plan is not shared by Vivian — and she is not the only one.
“It’s been an overwhelming workload for those of us who now have more than 1,000 students on a caseload, and nothing has been taken off our plate,” said Maureen Hall, Vivian’s counterpart at Riverbend and Thunder Mountain.
“There’s some parents that are a little upset, and they’re asking, you know, why there’s not a nurse for their child. And I 100 percent agree with that,” Vivian said.
“We had a situation come up where Ella had missed her dose of morning medication. It happened a couple of times last year, and I would just call the nurse and have her give it to her there at school,” recounted Brooke Rohweder, a Dzantik’i Heeni parent whose daughter must take two daily doses of medication. When the same thing happened this year and she was told the nurse was not available in the morning, she said, “My jaw kind of dropped.”
Already this school year, Vivian said Thursday, she has been asked to deal with a student needing attention at one middle school while she was at the other.
“They wanted me to go drive over … two times to one school in a day, like an hour apart, and I ended up saying no and we had to have the vice principal take over,” Vivian said.
Hoyt said he is unaware of that specific incident, though he noted a number of staff members at schools have been trained or are being trained as UAPs — “unlicensed assistive personnel” not certified as nurses, but able to administer medication, first aid and EpiPen auto-injections, among other needs.
“We felt it was important to have someone trained on each campus who was able to support the kids’ needs,” said Hoyt.
Despite the UAP training, Vivian said, she still fields phone calls “several times a week” asking her to help with a need that arises at the other middle school.
“I just try to work it out over the phone when I can,” Vivian said.
Dzantik’i Heeni’s assistant principal, Dale Staley, said staff may not be equipped for all eventualities.
“For certain things, we may not know what to do, and we just have to dial 911 and rely on the professionals to get here as soon as they can,” Staley said.
Hall said that whatever remains to be done of the UAP training is actually a burden right now.
“We’re still in the process of training the unlicensed assistive personnel … but they have their full work schedules, and we have ours, and trying to fit in time to check them off on their skills and make sure they’ve completed their modules, you know, that’s an added duty,” said Hall.
Meanwhile, both nurses said, they are falling behind on what they have to get done.
“I have a stack of student health histories from the registration days that I haven’t even had an opportunity to begin to look through,” Hall said.
“Usually in November, the State of Alaska will be sending us an immunization requirement … and I haven’t even been able to start that or even look at that,” said Vivian, echoing Hall.
Another parent, Teresa Kesey, who has a daughter with a peanut allergy at Dzantik’i Heeni, said in an email that while she believes the middle school “is doing the best they can under the circumstances,” she is concerned about her daughter’s health and safety.
“I have always felt my kids were safe at school knowing the nurse knew them by name and face, knows their history and I felt confident in their ability to treat an anaphylactic reaction or asthma attack,” Kesey wrote. “I no longer feel that way about the middle school which my daughter attends.”
“I just know from personal experience that no school should be without a nurse,” said Rohweder matter-of-factly. “In my opinion, it’s not acceptable for the health of our kids to be on the line, so to speak, because of budget cuts.”
Staley was cautious in his assessment of the plan.
“It seems to be a little awkward, but we’re used to having a full-time nurse in all our buildings, I think,” Staley said.
“Change is always difficult, and I think … kind of just the newness of it is probably the biggest challenge,” Hoyt agreed, noting that many schools elsewhere in the country do not have their own full-time nurses. Juneau Community Charter School, Montessori Borealis and Yaakoosge Daakahidi Alternate High School are among them.
Staley did express some concern about more chronic cases.
“You never know when something may happen with a kid,” said Staley. “Some students are what they call medically fragile or frail, and that can be a physical condition, a medical condition, I guess even an emotional condition. I guess we’re hoping the district will have something in place that will meet those students’ needs, and soon.”
LuAnn Powers, Auke Bay Elementary School’s nurse and the unofficial lead nurse for the district, said she has heard “horror stories” from Hall about the new system. She also worries that UAP training could lead to more cuts in the school nurse plan next year, she said.
“We just feel like our voices haven’t been heard,” Powers said.
The JSD currently has no funding to refill the two nurse positions eliminated during budget cuts, Hoyt said, though he sounded as though the district administration would like more nurses, not fewer, under ideal conditions.
“It would require additional funding from the state to be able to refill those nurses,” said Hoyt. “That would be optimum. That would be the best-case scenario.”
• Contact reporter Mark D. Miller at 523-2279 or at mark.d.miller@juneauempire.com.
Comments (48)
Add commentI just wonder...
what the Alaska State Board of Nursing would have to say about this. Can't see them taking too kindly to it.
I was called by the nurse and
I was called by the nurse and asked if my child could take his medicine at a different time than prescribed, because it would be more convenient for the staff, because she wasnt there. What can be done? This is outrageous.
Why is the city paying for
Why is the city paying for landscapers/ lawn mowers when our children go without full time nurses ?
The cost...
Of $150,000 per year teachers.
In the past week I've read
In the past week I've read articles in the JE where:
1. the district superintendent provided many excuses and no answers for underperformance and underachievement of students on national tests
2. a science teacher who sent letters home to parents telling them that kids are sitting on the floor because there is no desk space or chairs for all students
3. teacher:student ratio being unacceptably high
4. nurses being shared between schools
In a town of 31,000 and a school budget of 90 million bucks (close to the highest $$ per student budget in the nation), why can't we get this done?
Nurses
I find it interesting that people are being trained to administer medication. There are certain medications that can ONLY by given by a licensed nurse. Someone else giving these meds is opening the district up for big law suites.
Just Me,Good Post. Her is
Just Me,
Good Post.
Her is some info I dug up while thinking about this issue. Comparison of Juneau Public Schools ($18,000 per year per student) with Private schools.
From: http://www.capenet.org/facts.html (Note: it does appear to be a pro-private school website)
There are 33,366 private schools in the United States, serving 5.5 million PK-12 students. Private schools account for over 25 percent of the nation's schools and enroll about 10 percent of all students.
Most private school students (80 percent) attend religiously-affiliated schools (see table 2). And most private schools are small: 87 percent have fewer than 300 students (see table 1).
Average Private School Tuition: 2007-08
-------------All Levels -----Elementary------ Secondary----K-12 Schools
All Schools ----$8,549-----$6,733------------$10,549 --------$10,045
Catholic---------$6,018------$4,944 -----------$7,826 ----------$9,066
Other Religious--$7,117 ----$6,576----------$10,493-----------$7,073
Non-Sectarian----$17,316----15,945--------$27,302---------$16,247
NAEP Report Cards
Students in private schools consistently score well above the national average. At all three grades a significantly higher percentage of private school students score at or above the Basic, Proficient, and Advanced levels than public school students. Below are the results from the most recent NAEP report cards.
Huh?
“For certain things, we may not know what to do, and we just have to dial 911 and rely on the professionals to get here as soon as they can,” Staley said.
And how is THIS efficient? Seems like that just shifts the burden over to the emergency medical providers - a far more expensive way to deal with things.
And we of course pay for it either way.
private schools
no road, I suspect the tuition costs you're citing don't reflect the total cost per student with the religious schools. That's only the tuition part. Also, that's a national average. Juneau is an expensive place to operate and live, so costs will be higher.
As far as performance, private schools self-select for a better class of students. Only parents that care about their kids' education will shell out the money for private schools. Almost a third of Juneau students will drop out of high school. That's a stunning statistic to me. Those kids wouldn't be enrolled in private school...dragging down their test scores.
Do those private schools employ full-time RN's?
Can't afford NOT to have full-time nurses in the schools
Just to shed a little light on the private school phenomenon of consistently higher scores....(In answer to "noroadfugitive")
I taught in catholic schools a few years ago and our scores WERE higher. We also were unable to properly educate children who had any kind of special need. Children who were physically disabled, children with dyslexia, autism, or delayed reading issues - all went to public schools where they could be accommodated. Why? Because private schools did not have the funds to hire any special ed teachers, nor could they make their classrooms ADA compliant. Hence, the standardized test scores of the private schools reflect only those students who are relatively advantaged.
However, though we didn't have all the "specials" that are available in public schools, we did have NURSES. They are simply a part of "doing business" in a school setting. Let's not wait for a lawsuit to prove that nurses should be attending our precious children.
Nurses should be at hospitals
Nurses should be at hospitals or clinics. Disband the teachers union and start doing away with the overpaid administrators.
@noroadfugitive
Private schools choose their students and if the student proves to be difficult or requires more resources, the private school promptly kicks out that child to public schools who must take them.
It's a business: why take the same tuition if only to provide more work?
Comparing data of the two is comparing apples and oranges.
Public and private education are not the same.
I can understand the
I can understand the necessity of having a nurse in the school for emergencies and sick children. However, it's the mom's responsibility to ensure her daughter takes her medication especially if this is routine. I think using that as an example of why we need nurses is weak.
Who's responsible?
One point made in this article that doesn't make a good argument. My child missed her morning dose of medicine, so I depend on the school to give it to her. Since when does it becomes the schools responsibility to take care of a childs routine morning healthcare needs? Whos fault was it that the child 'didnt get her morning medication'? The schools? I would say the its parents responsibility. The school should not be considered a healthcare facility.
Budget Cuts or Improper Budgeting
When we think about these cuts to the nursing staff, we should be worried.
We also should be worried about the cuts that were made to the JESS members (Juneau Education Support Staff) who are our library assistants, para-educators, and school office personnel (the people who make sure the teachers can teach and are positive adults in the lives of our children) as well as worried about the JSD not rehiring positions 1) that teachers retired from and 2) were one year contracts, therefore making sure that class sizes increased.
We should worry that the JSD does not budget for teachers and staff FIRST, then building costs ... but instead funds programs over people.
Our students would be best served if our teachers and support staff (including school nurses) were given pay that actually increased with the cost of living. Well valued employees make the best chance for our students to succeed!
PLEASE make sure that you (the public) are 1) participating in the yearly school budgeting process AND 2) voting for state officials that understand that flat funding education is NOT OK.... inflation means that flat funding is actually CUTTING education.
the focus of the state nursing board is to keep nursing jobs
just like the focus of the teacher's union is to keep teaching jobs. There are no medications being given in schools that only a nurse can legally administer. Are you trying to make people believe the parents are breaking the law daily?
What is the big deal about asking if it is ok for the child to take medication a little later than arbitrarily indicated? You wouldn't bat an eye if you were out late and delayed a dose.
Nurses don't do more than have the child lay down for a while or call the parent. They aren't able to prescribe medications or even do a basic medical exam so what is it that they are so critical for? In any emergency all they do is ask someone to call 911.
This is all about nursing jobs and creating a panic about the loss of 2 jobs in an entire community.
question
Do all of those who say that nurses are needed to give medications have nurses come into their homes to give the same kids those meds? If not, what is the medication argument about? It only takes the ability to read and have basic intelligence to give someone a pill at a certain time. If there is not someone in the school building with that skill set, what are they doing in the school in the first place? Time to move it on to real issues like addressing the drop out rate and the extreme costs that it takes to fund JSD.
Come on
If a student doesn't need a nurse at home to take medicine why do they need a nurse at school? I think the district's idea of training a few other personnel to deliver medicine is a great idea. No need to have a registered nurse. Come on let's work on reasonable solutions.
According to student services director Brad Hoyt
nurses initially came up with the idea of teaming some schools together. How did that come about? Out of eight nurses two are apparently unable to handle the workload. So ask the two let go if they can.
Cuts in education
Education is the real investment. While fuel and energy and other costs rose, Alaska, this year cut more from education than any other state. Parnell's reign of ignorance needs to come to an end. Penny wise, pound foolish, his legacy will be felt by sick and lagging children for years to come. This state needs to retire him and find someone who knows how to build the future. Depriving children of the tools to learn and diminishing their health care opportunities is setting our state back.
Misleading comments
The comments by Brad Hoyt and Kristin Bartlett falsely lead the reader to assume that this situation was proposed by the nurses. What the article doesn't say is that the nurses were essentially forced to come up with a way to try to best serve the students with what they were given by the cabinet and school board. The cabinet and school board made the cuts and then left the nurses to clean up the mess. The nurses became involved with this plan because it is a given that if administration solved their own problem, the situation would be worse. The point is not that people don't like change; the point is that this arrangement is not working.
West,The special ed kids
West,
The special ed kids don’t take the standardized tests..and so don’t effect test scores.
Also..please explain how Special Ed kids in Public School drive down the ability of other kids in Public School to test well?
Lat,
Kids that dropout don’t effect test scores…they don’t take the test.
Middle,
Bad kids can be kicked out of public schools also.
West, Lat, Middle,
So according to your argument.. If public schools didn’t have special ed kids, dropouts, or bad kids they would do as well as private schools…is that correct?
Ridiculous
@Ken: The 2 out of 8 of nurses that "can't handle the load" are the ONLY 2 that are working out of 2 schools!! Of course the other 6 aren't complaining!!!
To say that other people can provide the same services as nurses is utterly ridiculous!! Nurses have YEARS of training!! They are trained to deal with and notice things that the average person would miss!! This is extremely negligent!! Putting money over safety. Wrong. I would not have my children in a school without a nurse for half the day. The half day that said nurse is there, the nurse is overwhelmed and overworked. This is unacceptable. It'll probably take a sentinel event or a lawsuit to wake people up.
Spec Ed kids do take
Spec Ed kids do take standardized tests, which is definitly not the point of the discussion.
School nurses helped to formulate this new plan simply as a survival mechanism for themselves and students. To infer that the nurses should be held responsible for the failure of the plan is ridiculous, but sadly, a classic administrative technique. Bartlett and Hoyt should be embarrassed by their quotes, and readers should be outraged by the administrations deliberate attempt to mislead the public.
Administering medication in a timely manner is the least of the concerns here. Funding allocation and student health and safety is the problem. If a Licensed professional is telling us that they are unable to provide satisfactory care for their case load, this is a problem and it is time for the administration to reallocate funds from their pet projects to real issues with real students and real employees.
It would be helpful...
...if the Empire did a "Day in the life of a school nurse" piece so we get a better idea of the services provided. I suspect that administering meds that a parent forgot is the least of their duties.
Priorities
So we can bus a few children from Lena to JD and visa versa, a few children from N. Douglas to TMHS? This is when fuel prices are high, not to mention other busing costs, and we can't afford school nurses? Aren't we one of the richest states? Looks to me like priorities, at some level, are messed up. I think it's time to close the school boundaries, which should trim down the busing costs and have full time school nurses. Bones are broken on school playgrounds, kids need medication, and sick kids are plentiful this time of year.....come on, let's get our priorities straight.
no road
"Kids that dropout don’t effect test scores…they don’t take the test."
No, not after they drop out. But the kids that are on a track to drop out still do, even though they're likely performing far behind their cohort.
Hang Out
The nurses office in most schools are a place to hang out and cut class. If there is a real emergency they call 911-so nurses are
complete and total waste of money. It's just another example of the explosion in high salary employees that aren't in the classroom. Cut nurses, cut administrators and hire more teachers.
You have no clue, Glasseye.....
Nurses in JDS do NOT allow students to "Hang out and cut class" How do I know this? Simple, My wife was the School Nurse at Riverbend Elementary, for two years. No Student was EVER allowed to just "Hang Out", and Grade School Students do NOT "Cut class" I know Mrs Vivian RN, personally, and she is a highly qualified Nurse. It was my wife that told her about the School Nursing Position in the School District. If Laura says she is "Overloaded" then it isn't just talk, It is Negligent, to the point of Disaster, waiting to happen. It isn't just the students that these Nurses serve, it is the Teachers, and onsite Staff as well. You should spend a DAY, in their shoes, and LEARN, a thing or Two, before you spout of total nonsense. My Opinion.... YMMV....
JuneauAlaska: Good point.
Anyone in this message-board classroom who are not now, or have never, raised kids are now excused.
Any parent, grandparent or daycare provider will attest to the totally unpredictable nature of child injuries. But all will agree the question is not if, but when, a child will be presented to school administrators in lieu of trained medical staff.
Talk about rolling the dice.
Question: Does the school, under 'loco parentis', pick up the tab for the ambulance call or do the parents?
Sorry about my earlier post...I am a creature of private enterprise where money is something I have to generate.