District nurses report high immunization compliance, expanded emergency response training

District nurses contracted through Fort Healthcare told the Milton School Board on Monday that the 2024–25 school year saw expanded student health services, nearly complete immunization compliance and a districtwide push to make every school “heart safe.”

Alyssa and Shelly, the district nurses, said they were contracted for a total of 3,140 hours during the school year and worked alongside two full‑time health aides. Their presentation listed outreach to classrooms, staff training on medication administration and CPR, and coordination with community partners for dental and vision services.

The nurses reported a district immunization compliance rate of 98.57 percent; 92.3 percent of students met minimum immunization requirements, with the remainder having documented waivers or incomplete records. They also said 391 students received dental services coordinated through HealthNet and other partners, and that Seals of Smile provided $164,227 in free dental care for district students this year.

On emergency preparedness, the nurses said every school in the district achieved Project Adam heart‑safe certification after schoolwide drills, staff AED checks and organized medical emergency response teams (MERC) in each building. The nurses explained a MERC call is the district term for a medical emergency response; MERC calls do not always result in ambulance transports, but an ambulance call does trigger a MERC response.

The nurses provided data on office visits and medication doses given in school; total district enrollment for the year was reported as 3,465 students, and roughly 20 percent of those students had at least one reported chronic health condition (ADHD, asthma, diabetes, seizures, severe allergies, or recognized mental‑health conditions). They noted some year‑to‑year variation in health‑office visits and attributed declines in some buildings partly to staff training and a build‑your‑own “self‑care” station for minor needs such as Band‑Aid requests.

For 2025–26, the nurses listed goals to improve infectious‑disease prevention in cooperation with the Rock County Health Department, expand social‑emotional and mental‑health referral processes, and launch a quarterly health newsletter to keep families informed.

Board members thanked the nurses for the presentation, asked clarifying questions about the apparent 500‑visit decline at the middle school and about MERC procedures, and praised the Project Adam certification work. The nurses said action and emergency plans and physician orders are reissued each year and that they create new health plans annually.