Richfield schools report expanded nursing services, immunization outreach and thousands of student health encounters

Michelle Whiteside, health services supervisor for Richfield Public Schools, told the school board on July 14 that her department reorganized nursing coverage, completed screenings and immunization work, and managed hundreds of individual health plans during the 2024–25 school year. Whiteside said the district now has three licensed school nurses aligned to buildings and a health-paraprofessional floater position to support middle- and high-school coverage. "We each will have 3 buildings, and we'll be overseeing the health care professionals at each site," she said. The update included concrete counts and examples: nurses wrote 275 special-education screening reports and reviewed about 400 early-childhood screenings; a texting campaign tied to the Minnesota Immunization Information Connection (MIIC) resulted in 167 students receiving immunizations; and three grant-funded vaccine clinics delivered 348 immunizations, Whiteside said.…