Emily Morris, Salado ISD Nurse, and I sat down last week and had a conversation about the state of affairs in our district, the state and in the nation in regards to school health. Mrs. Morris is very knowledgeable and extremely diligent in her professional development and is always up to date on current issues. She has been the nurse here for 4 years. Before that she served in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Scott & White Hospital in Temple. She is a registered nurse and holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Emily discussed with me the shortage that the state and nation are seeing in the field of nursing. She said that it is no different in the public school system. There is a shortage of good nurses but our shortage stems from budget shortfalls and quality applications. We discussed that the pay for good nurses is very competitive between hospitals and that schools cannot compete unless the person is looking for opportunity cost. One opportunity cost that would be attractive to nurses is the 8 to 5 schedule at a school compared to the ever changing schedule at a hospital. Another issue facing school nurses is the availability of health care for families and children. We talked about this being a major issue for Texas but we realized it is a problem all over this country. Emily heads up our Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) and conducts quarterly meetings at our district. This committee discusses these same issues that we discuss and focus them down upon certain children and try to make ends meet.
Mrs. Morris and I ended our interview with the discussion that nurses in schools are becoming more of a luxury as our budgets get tighter. Could nurses on every campus be a luxury? At a previous district that I taught at, we had a district nurse one day a week. How is that meeting our students needs?
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