Several speakers addressed the school board Thursday night to express concerns about the number of nurses in county schools.
While the system now employs four registered nurses to cover five schools, Coordinated School Health Coordinator Dee Anna Reynolds, along with the nurses and some parents, think the situation is an invitation to disaster. Reynolds said that the five school clinics dealt with more than 20,000 visits last year, and received 2,000 in the first month of school this year.
“Total visits include clinic visits, medicines given, and staff visits. We add those numbers to get the total visits,” Reynolds explained.
She said the growing population of our schools brings more children with medical problems such as diabetes and siezures, and that while LPN Cindy Childers has been helping, her participation is limited because of her other duties.
“Covering the Middle School/ High School is almost impossible from 10:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. so Cindy has been leaving every day to go over for a couple of hours to cover both schools, and some days she stays longer because there are other situations to deal with” Reynolds said. “Cindy is part time, so she can't do that every day. On days when she does, the nurse at Smithville Elementary School goes over there, so we're leaving Smithville Elementary School open. Even for a few hours that worries us a little bit, because we have students diagnosed with seizure disorders which require the emergency medication Diastat if a seizure occurs at school, and only a nurse can administer Diastat.”
School Nurse Chandra Adcock spoke about the need for another nurse as well. “As a parent, taxpayer, and employee, I'm concerned that we as a county only choose to provide partial nursing services to an entire population of children,” Adcock said. “We have multiple students in our schools every day with chronic health conditions. We have people with asthma, diabetes, seizure disorders, cardiac disease, life threatening allergies, blood disorders, cystic fibrosis, and many more. On a daily basis that one nurse is assigned to care for students in two of the largest schools in the county serving approximately 1,400 students.”
Three parents who have children with diabetes, Darlene Evans, Ashley Bryant, and Glenda Davis, also expressed their concern to the board, and asked that funds be allocated to hire another school nurse.
Since the present school budget does not include funds for another nurse, a budget amendment, authorized by the county commission, would be necessary to fund the position.
Board Chairman W.J. (Dub) Evins, III told the assembly that he felt a workshop should be held to discuss the matter.
“A budget amendment probably isn't going to happen, and if it does it's probably going to take a while,” Evins said. “My main objective right now is to see if we can come up with a plan to make sure these issues are addressed. This will give us some time between now and the next board meeting to come up a plan.”
Director of Schools Mark Willoughby said a substitute nurse will be utilized to fill the void until a decision can be reached.
“I think it's extremely serious,” Willoughby told the board. “Unless you tell me different, I'm going to start putting a substitute nurse in there every day until we can get somebody we can classify as full time. We have more of a need this year than what we have had in the past.”
The four Registered Nurses currently employed by the school system are Chandra Adcock, Kim Turner, Christie Driver, and Joanie Williams. DeKalb Middle School and DeKalb County High School currently share a nurse. Willoughby said the state funding pays for one school nurse per three thousand students, and additional nurses must be funded locally.
The board agreed to meet on Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. Evins asked that Reynolds and the nurses attend the meeting. While the board could not vote on the matter at the workshop, members largely agreed to peruse the budget closely to try and find the money to add the new position. Until then a substitute will fill the empty spot.
Meanwhile, the school system will apparently not contract custodial work to GCA Services Group. When Evins inquired as to the status of the proposed deal, Willoughby said he will not bring the matter back up. “I have no intention of bringing it back up unless a board member asks me to,” the director said. “That’s dead in the water. If a board member asks me to check into it again I will. If not I won’t.”
The system had negotiated with GCA to provide custodial services for $400,000 for the first year with annual renewal options for at least up to four additional years, but controversy arose when questions about the company’s record on hiring practices derail the proposition.
