School nurses are an integral part of the team effort that supports student success. In recognition of their hard work, May 12 was celebrated as National School Nurse Day.
Established in 1972, National School Nurse Day intends to foster a better understanding of the role of school nurses in the educational setting.
Dawson County School Health Services is designed to assist families in devoting attention to child health and to help guide parents in obtaining health services to eliminate barriers to learning.
Dawson County Schools provide an RN or LPN in each of its six schools.
School nurses assist in caring for students with chronic and acute medical conditions and injuries occurring during the school day.
They also serve as a referral gateway for these children and their families to encourage and find access to needed health care.
School systems, such as Dawson County, that do a good job of handling student’s health issues are proven to have lower absenteeism, lower dropout rates, as well as higher test scores and graduation rates.
If you have a child without health problems, you may think the nurse is there to put on band-aids. But if you have a child with health issues, or that has ever had an injury or developed an acute illness at school, you realize the complexity and necessity of the role.
Growing numbers of children suffer from special health care needs such as insulin-dependent diabetes, asthma, severe life threatening food allergies, seizures and other conditions that require more sophisticated life saving interventions during the school day.
In all, 30 percent of the 3,400 Dawson County students are diagnosed with a chronic medical condition. More children are on prescription drugs or medical regimens that require professional assessment and intervention while at school. School nurses in Dawson County delivered 16,912 doses of medication during the 2009-10 school year.
Today, school nursing is recognized as a specialized practice that advances the well-being, academic success and lifelong achievement of students.