Giving a voice to school nursing in Georgia

Georgia Nursing, Aug-Oct 2002 by Carmon, Myra

Even though the legislation had been passed and money was allocated for a program, there was confusion and chaos in the implementation process. The money allocated was specified for salaries and there were no funds available for supplies and equipment. It was projected that local school boards and businesses would contribute to the School Health program with the supplies and equipment. Also, many districts had no idea how to implement a program. A group from the Georgia Partnership compiled materials and took to the State Department of education who was to allocate the funds but the materials were not distributed.

School systems were hiring unlicensed individuals to work in school clinics even though the legislation stated "licensed health care providers." RN's were concerned about the legal responsibilities involved with supervising Unlicensed personnel to perform nursing functions. GNA through representation with the GPSH visited the Governor and Commissioner Russ Toal to state concerns, and a letter was written to the State Department of Education to voice concerns about the lack of compliance to the law. There are still many different health care providers in Georgia's school districts today.

Some hospitals are hiring school nurses and providing education for these nurses. One of the first to do this a few years ago was Coffee County which used indigent care funds to put a RN in all schools in their county. The parents, students, principals, and superintendents were interviewed after one year and everyone was very much in favor of having school nurses in all schools. The companies in the area also found that having school nurses kept their employees on the job since they did not have to constantly go to pick up children who did not need to go home. The school nurse evaluation kept most of the children in the classroom.

It became aware very early that school nurses need orientation to the role and education. The nursing education programs do not provide knowledge of school environments and special tasks to be performed by the school nurse. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta put together a manual with the assistance of members of the GPSH to send to each school district. In addition, education programs for school nurses were made available at the Georgia School Nurse Convention and more intense programs at the universities. DHR has been very involved in all aspects of education for the school nurse.

Research

The Georgia Health Policy Center surveyed electronically the Georgia School Superintendents Association. Of the 180 surveyed, 178 completed the survey to state that they supported a school nurse program. Toni Barnett, PhD, RN interviewed parent groups to assess perceptions of parents related to the health needs of children, strategies to resolve these health needs, and school-based health services. She obtained this information through focus groups in South Georgia. Dr. Barnett found that parents identified the following as problems: lack of nutritious and culturally sensitive meals, unappealing school meals, prevalence of obesity in children, lack.of physical education, lack of soap and paper towels in- the bath room and lack of sex education. Parents endorsed school based health services provided by school nurses.