Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the School Health topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
District nursing staff ask for full-time second RN as fifth grade moves to middle school
Summary
The district27s nursing coordinator said moving fifth grade to the middle school will add roughly 200 students and increase clinical needs; nurses requested a second full-time RN at KMS and the superintendent agreed to review staffing and data with principals.
Ellen Estrella, the Mount Hope High School nurse who also serves as district nursing coordinator, told the Bristol-Warren Regional School Committee on Feb. 9 that moving the fifth grade into the middle school will increase the middle-school population by about 200 students and the number of daily medical needs.
Estrella provided visit and screening figures and said the nursing office encounters range from triage and documentation to medication administration and clinical oversight. She told the committee that daily medication administrations at KMS are projected to rise to 17 students next year and highlighted concerns about the growing number of students with Type 1 diabetes who require monitoring and rapid response for hypoglycemia.
"Please give serious consideration to maintaining 6 professional licensed registered nurses for our district for the safety and the well-being of our children," Estrella said. She asked that a second RN be assigned to KMS full time rather than handled through floating coverage.
Superintendent Riley said the district had kept an extra nurse this year due to grant funding and that she would review Estrella27s data with principals and budget managers and bring recommendations back to the committee. Committee members asked for clarity on how many nurses were funded through grants versus the general fund and sought assurances that principals and student-facing staff had been consulted in staffing recommendations.
No vote was taken on staffing at the Feb. 9 meeting; Riley committed to follow-up meetings with nursing staff and principals as budget decisions proceed.
