MIDVALE — On Thursday, a team of nurses from Canyons School District put Copperview Elementary School students through vision screenings.
Last year, the district’s team of eight nurses performed 13,000 vision screenings, in addition to tending to the everyday needs of students, teaching responsibilities and responding to emergencies districtwide.
“A lot of people don’t know what we do. They think we do Band-Aids and boo-boos all day long. But we manage kids with severe health needs and we want them to be able to come to school just like anyone else,” said Sally Goodger, Canyons School District’s nursing team leader.
Canyons, which added another nurse for this year, is working toward a goal of one nurse serving three schools each. The National Association of School Nurses recommends that a professional registered school nurse is present in every school all day, every day.
Bringing Utah up to that standard — hiring 827 additional school nurses — would cost $78.6 million above current spending on school nursing, according to a new Utah Department of Health report.
Most school nurses in Utah are hired by schools or school districts, with about one-third of them funded through a local health department.
“The nine of us carry the load of 42 schools in our district, and we range from having three schools to having six schools each,” Goodger said.
But the suburban district, which has made hiring nurses a priority, is in better stead than most Utah school districts, according to the report. Two school districts, Tintic and Logan, don’t have a registered nurse.
Park City School District enjoys the lowest nurse to student ratio statewide, 1:869 students.
For the rest, nurses are spread thin meeting the diverse needs of students.
School nurses tend to tummy aches and skinned knees. But they also help students manage diabetes, asthma, severe allergies and seizure disorders.
During the 2018-19 school year, nurses administered emergency rescue medications 78 times, including naloxone to reverse an opioid drug overdose. Epinephrine was administered 30 times and seizure rescue medications were administered 45 times, the report states.
School nurses’ duties also include teaching students about personal hygiene, maturation, nutrition and other health issues, and training school staff to care for the students with chronic health conditions because there is not a nurse in every Utah school.
Beyond Canyons’ team of nine “general education” nurses, three nurses work at Jordan Valley School, which serves students with severe disabilities.
Some students cared for by Utah school nurses require catheterizing, tube feeding and suctioning tracheostomy tubes, the report says.
Goodger said one goal of expanding Canyons’ nursing program is to “be present” in schools so students get to know the nurses and view them as another trusted adult in their school who can help them.
“That’s our goal is to give our nurses smaller caseloads so we can get in, talk to the kids in the sick room and visit our kids who are there frequently and figure out ‘What’s going on that’s making your head hurt every day at this time?’ Or ‘Yeah, I know your tummy hurts but you’re not throwing up so we can send you back to class. I’m going to be here for a couple hours and if you feel poorly, you can come on back down,’” Goodger said.
In fact, the report says school nurses consistently return more students to class than other school personnel.
“This keeps students in school and ready to learn. Of the 193,043 documented visits to the health office in the 2018-2019 school year, if the student saw the school nurse they were returned to class 93% of the time. If the student saw someone other than the school nurse (health clerk or secretary) only 83% were returned to class,” the report states.
Goodger said she believes children tend to feel comfortable talking to nurses or doctors about health-related issues. While school secretaries and aides are also important adults in a student’s school experience, they are busy with other duties and some staff worry about liability if they don’t recognize a problem or know how to address it.
Lowering caseloads means school nurses would have an opportunity to build rapport with students and provide care that some children may not receive elsewhere.
“Can kids get too much love? I don’t think so. Kids will say ‘You’re that nurse thing’ and I say ‘Yes, I am.’ It makes my heart happy,” she said.