Southeastern Middle

School Nurse

The professional school nurse is responsible for planning, implementing, coordinating, and evaluating school health services within the context of the Coordinated School Health Program Model. The school nurse serves in the roles of program manager/coordinator, case manager/direct care provider, collaborator/advocate, educator, and counselor for Stokes County Schools in assigned schools.

The professional school nurse provides management of the comprehensive school health program by assessing, planning/coordinating, implementing, and evaluating school health services in order to maximize the quality of in-class time by reducing the incidence of health-related absenteeism, eliminate or minimize health problems that impair learning, and assist students to achieve the highest degree of independent functioning possible.

The complex role of the school nurse demands, but is not limited to, an understanding and knowledge of community, including the community as a system and aggregates as clients; pediatric/adolescent nursing; public health/community health nursing; health counseling, mental health, and crisis intervention; communicable disease; applicable laws, regulations, and standards pertaining to school nursing practice (NC Nurse Practice Act, Standards of School Nursing Practice, and the Eight Components of a Coordinated School Health Program); school health law; special education legislation and services; case finding, case management, and health advocacy; program management, including personnel supervision; family theory, assessment, and intervention; leadership, networking, and collaboration; ethnic and cultural sensitivity and competence; contemporary health and psychosocial issues that influence children, families, and the community; health care delivery systems and the concepts of the primary health care; building student, staff, and family capacity for adaptation, self management, self-advocacy, and learning; school as a non-traditional health care setting; and environmental health within the school community.

Skills include planning, coordinating, and supervising the work of others; dealing tactfully with others and exercising good judgment in appraising situations; making independent and timely nursing decisions and to triage; securing the cooperation and respect of students, faculty, and staff; eliciting needed information and maintaining effective working relationships; collecting data to direct evidence based practice; recording accurately services rendered and interpreting and explaining records, reports, activities, health care plans, accommodations and medical interventions; and identifying health related barriers to learning (i.e., at risk behaviors, financial, cultural, economical, etc.).

Duties, responsibilities, and essential job functions include maximizing the quantity of in-class time by reducing the incidence of health-related absenteeism; eliminating or minimizing health problems which impair learning; promoting the highest degree of independent functioning possible; promoting students, staff, and community awareness of and participation in health behaviors; and providing as program manager/coordinator, case manager/care provider, collaborator/advocate, educator, and counselor.