Centers for Disease Control.
I looked into a major school district in my area and found that the schools in my area have a nurse assigned to each school. The school nurse helps students with chronic illnesses like type one diabetes manage their illness. The school nurse also watches out for children with communicable diseases and decides to send them home if they have diarrhea, vomiting, fever, or a deep cough. Parents are also instructed to not send their kids to school if they have a communicable disease or lice. The school district policy is that children must be 24 hours being symptom-free before they can return to school. The school nurse cannot give medications that are prescribed three times a day at school unless the doctor says that medication during school hours. The school nurse will not give narcotics or any form of cannabis even with a doctor’s order. The school nurse will also provide hearing screenings in preschool, kindergarten, grades 1, 2, 6, and 9. The school nurse also will screen vision screenings during the same year as the hearing test. Another screening that the school nurse does is scream for scoliosis when kids are in sixth and seventh grades. The school nurse also makes sure that students are up to date on their vaccines in order to be entered into the school.
The school nurse helps promote Health by helping students who have chronic diseases manage their health. The school nurse also promotes health by sending kids home that show signs of a communicable disease and prevents communicable disease spread by making sure students are up-to-date on their vaccinations. Doing a quick screening for hearing, vision, and scoliosis will also ensure that all parents are aware if their child needs to see a provider for these medical conditions.
The Center for Disease Control [CDC] (2019) explains that school health services can promote health for students by providing acute and emergency care, care coordination, chronic disease management, and family engagement. The school nurse can help with acute or emergency care if a student is in a medical crisis like a seizure. The nurse can also respond if a violent crime were to happen on campus. The school nurse will coordinate health care with families, health care providers, administration, and teachers (CDC, 2019). The school nurse will work with students with chronic conditions by helping to manage their condition for example like helping children with glucose checks and providing insulin. The school nurse can also help engage families of students by giving parents health status updates and giving students extra dietary and physical considerations (CDC, 2019).
Reference:
Centers for Disease Control. (2019, May 29). School health services. Retrieved from
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/schoolhealthservices.htm.
