The Cupertino Courier
Education
School nurses on the move to bring services to district
Erin Hussey
School nurses move around a lot more than they used to.
"A lot of people look at me and say, 'school nurse? I thought they were gone,' and I say, 'no, we're still here,' " says Stephania Higdon.
Higdon is one of six school nurses, including Catherine Nalesnick, Sandy Hull, Katy Waugh, Janice Leier and Bonnie Hirch, who care for the 16,500 students in the Cupertino Union Elementary School District.
Higdon, who worked as a maternity hospital nurse for 18 years before becoming a school nurse in 2001, works at Blue Hills, Collins, Muir, Regnart and West Valley elementary schools and Hyde Middle School.
"We have state-mandated things that we have to do like vision, hearing and scoliosis screening," says Higdon. The nurses are also responsible for setting up protocols for medications, observing special needs children, monitoring student absences, providing CPR and first-aid training sessions for teachers and some counseling.
"There are a lot of things we do to make sure that kids can stay in school and be healthy--some of it's routine, some of it's not."
On average, Hidgon and her fellow nurses will visit three to four schools every day. They also carry pagers and cell phones so they can be reached in case of emergency.
"The secretaries in this district are great, and they really help us out," says Hidgon. Because six nurses can't be at 24 schools at once, they train the certified staff, principals and teachers on how to respond to basic first-aid needs. "They are on the front line. They are like our health clerks, even though that's not their title. They know when they need us and when they can just figure it out."
According to Waugh, who has been working as a school nurse for more than 20 years, the top four health issues she and her fellow nurses currently work with are asthma, food allergies, diabetes and children with seizure disorders.
"There has been a huge increase in the number of kids with asthma," Waugh says. She estimates that about 1,000 students in the district have asthma of varying severity.
"We don't really know why there has been such an increase," says Higdon. Both Waugh and Higdon say that while some link asthma with obesity, this might not be the case. "They do know that there are more things out there that kids are allergic to, and allergies and asthma seem to go together."
Training students on how to use their inhalers isn't the nurses' favorite part of the job.
"I like being a child advocate," says Nalesnick. Nalesnick, who started her nursing career in a hospital emergency room, has been working as a school nurse since 2000. "We are very dedicated to students' needs; that's our focus."
Some of the nurses' favorite memories come from the days they do vision testing.
"I have kids at vision screenings hold a paper cup over one eye and think they are supposed to be able to see with the eye that is covered," says Higdon. "I had one little boy who really freaked out and started saying, 'I can't see! I can't see!' They are very literal. You have to tell the little ones exactly what they are supposed to do."
Along with the laughs, the nurses enjoy collaborating with each other.
"We all have different backgrounds, so we each bring different things to the job," says Higdon. "We all complement each other and help each other when we are stuck. Being in charge of six schools is a lot of responsibility but having more brain power helps a lot."
Nalesnick adds that while working at multiple schools can be demanding, she believes it has never hindered their most important clients.
"I can't say that any student has suffered because we are staffed the way we are," Nalesnick says. "Our biggest challenge is working with limited staff, but I still think we are doing an excellent job."
