Are there enough school nurses?

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ohio — School nurses are among those on the front lines of the pandemic, but are there enough?

The topic that has been even more prevalent during the pandemic as school nurses take on more responsibilities.

"If we aren’t treating our students’ basic needs -- meeting their needs -- we aren’t able to challenge them academically,” Toronto City Schools Superintendent Maureen Taggart said.

Toronto city schools recently added another nurse to their staff -- a move that has proven beneficial even before the pandemic hit.

"We started tracking the usage of the school nurse back in 2017, and we noticed at that time and continuing through now, that about 20 percent of our student population was identified with a chronic health condition that requires some management from our school nurse,” Taggart said.

According to 2017 data in Ohio, there are a little over 1,500 full- and part-time nurses in the state and some schools don’t have the services of a registered nurse on a full-time basis, in the absence of a nurse, the secretary was most likely to administer first aid.

Meanwhile in West Virginia, the Department of Education provided data that shows the state has a little under 500 school nurses.

Is that enough?

“I think we have a shortage,” Sen. William Ihlenfeld said. “In some counties, I think the problem is that, by law, there has to be at least one nurse for 1,500 students K-7, not pre-K or 8-12.”

He says that another issue they are facing is that can’t compete with the wages in the private sector.

"In some schools in some communities, the school nurse plays an incredibly critical role in monitoring health and well-being of students,” Ihlenfeld said.

As far as the nursing profession as a whole, Eastern Gateway Community College is seeing a large interest in it.

"There is an increase in frontline workers because people are seeing what heroes they are,” said Gina Augustine, dean, health, science, and public service, EGCC. “Second, people are looking for jobs that are COVID-proof.”

"We need to do things in all aspect to help the community and particularly health of citizens in our service district,” said Dr. John Crooks, senior vice president of academic affairs at EGCC.

Officials at EGCC say they don’t see their nurses go into the school setting because they have to complete further training to become a school nurse upon graduation.