KATHY'S KORNER

April As the year starts coming to a close and you think about all you accomplished this past year, make sure that you make an appointment with your school principals to review what services you provided this past year, what were some accomplishments and what were some of the challenges. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to collect data at your school level. Principals need to know the health issues of their students and how the care you provided allowed students to be in school ready to learn. Let your school know what you do! There is a myth that it is not professional to promote ourselves but that is not so. If we remain invisible, school nursing services will be the first item cut in a budget crisis. I smile when I hear about a district that cut nursing staff and now they are slowly adding them back. They don’t know what they are missing until you are gone! National School Nurse Day is Wednesday, May 9th. Utilize the promotional information supplied by NASN. Include an article in your school newsletter about how school nursing got its start back in 1902. It is interesting to note that we are still dealing with the same issues now as they did back then, communicable disease, chronic health conditions, absenteeism to name a few.