Doretha James, RN School Nurse Administrator Of The Year!

Congratulations to Doretha James, RN.  She was awarded the title of Alabama's School Administrator Nurse of the Year.  We are so proud of your accomplishment. 

Thanksgiving Day is National Family History Day. A family health history helps identify people who may be at a higher risk for some diseases because it reflects risk factors that family members share, like genes, environment, and lifestyle. Take a few minutes to know your family health history

• Start a family health portrait today.
• Update your family health portrait as you learn about family members’ diseases and conditions.
• Share your family health portrait with other family members. Encourage them to create one, too.

Five Minutes or Less for Health Weekly Tip: Be Smoke-Free

Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and affecting the health of smokers and those around them. Quitting smoking has immediate as well as long-term benefits for you and your loved ones. Take a few minutes to make the decision to be smoke-free.

• If you smoke, call 1-800-QUIT-NOW (784-8669) or your doctor or nurse for help in quitting.
• Avoid secondhand smoke. Stay away from other people’s smoke.
• If you’re pregnant, choose not to smoke.
• Choose restaurants and businesses that are smoke-free

Five Minutes or Less for Health Weekly Tip: Check Alarm Batteries

Everyone should have smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors in their homes. Take a few minutes to ensure your alarms will sound in an emergency.

• Install a battery-operated carbon monoxide detector near bedrooms.
• Check or change the batteries to your carbon monoxide detectors at least twice a year.

Five Minutes or Less for Health Weekly Tip: Keep Foods Safe

To help protect yourself and others from foodborne illness, take a few minutes to ensure foods are safe.

• Refrigerate leftovers promptly. Bacteria can grow quickly at room temperature, so refrigerate leftover foods if they are not going to be eaten within 4 hours. When in doubt, throw it out.
• Wash hands, utensils, and cutting boards after they have been in contact with raw meat or poultry and before they touch another food.
• Wash produce before you eat it.
• Take a few extra minutes to make sure meat, poultry, and eggs are cooked thoroughly.
• Report suspected foodborne illnesses to your local health department.
• Check foodsafety.gov , your gateway to federal food safety information.

• Install smoke alarms on every floor of your home.
• Test smoke alarms monthly to ensure they work properly. For smoke alarms that use regular alkaline batteries, replace the batteries at least once a year. For smoke alarms that use lithium (long-life) batteries, replace the entire alarm unit every ten years or sooner if it chirps or stops working.
• Make a disaster plan. Know where to meet other family members in case of an emergency, such as a fire.

Guidelines For Keeping A Sick Child At Home

"NASN Guidelines For Keeping A Sick Child At Home

Should I keep my child home or send him or her to school? Consider keeping your child home if he or she: • Has a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher • Has been vomiting • Has symptoms that prevent him or her from participating in school, such as: − Excessive tiredness or lack of appetite − Productive coughing, sneezing − Headache, body aches, earache − Sore throat A minor sore throat is usually not a problem, but a severe sore throat could be strep throat even if there is no fever. Other symptoms of strep throat in children are headache and stomach upset. Contact your pediatrician as your child needs a special test to determine if it is strep throat. Keep your child home until his or her fever has been gone for 24 hours without medication. Colds can be contagious for at least 48 hours. Returning to school too soon may slow the recovery process and expose others unnecessarily to illness.

Does my child have the flu? • The flu is serious! Call your pediatrician at the first sign of flu symptoms, which typically come on suddenly, including: − High fever − Chills − Head ache, body aches, ear ache − Nausea, vomiting − Dry cough If you’re unsure about the best way to treat your child’s cold or flu, ask your school nurse, doctor, pharmacist, or other healthcare provider. How do I make my child feel better? • Make sure your child gets plenty of rest and put limits on TV watching • Encourage fluids; like water, soup, juice and ice • Help your child relax by reading him a story and giving him plenty of TLC • Consider using a cool humidifier • When used as directed, children’s cough and cold medicines help relieve cough and cold symptoms while your child is getting better. Read and follow the directions carefully and give the exact recommended dose for the child’s age. Do not use over the counter cough and cold medications for children under the age of four in the U.S.

How can I prevent my child from getting a cold? • Teach your child to wash his or her hands frequently using plenty of soap and warm water. Proper hand-washing should take about 20 seconds or the time it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" twice • Teach your child to cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or their sleeve • Keep the child’s environment tobacco free • Try to minimize the time your child spends with other children who have cough or cold symptoms • Pack easy-to-use products like disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizers in your child’s backpack to use when he or she is at school • Keep an annual well-child exam to follow changes in your child’s health • Keep all of your child’s immunizations up-to-date (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines now recommend a flu vaccine for most children aged 6 months up to their 19th birthday) • Serve a balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables. Giving a daily vitamin may be recommended by your pediatrician • After your child is feeling better, clean all surfaces; wash the bedding and air out the room • Keep surfaces like door knobs, phones, remote controls, toys, and keyboards clean • Always make sure to consult your school nurse or doctor if you have any questions

Healthy Classrooms/Gerri Harvey, RN, MEd

Ten Things Teachers Can Do to

Create Healthy Classrooms

Gerri Harvey, RN, MEd

1. Reinforce and make time for healthy practices: covering sneezes, hand washing with soap.Contrary to popular belief, most cold germs are passed on hands, not by sneezing.

2. Encourage kids to go outside for recess. The outdoor air, especially in the winter, is more humid, and much fresher than the air indoors, which tends to be drying to the mucous membranes , increasing the incidences of nosebleeds, impetigo, chapped lips, ear infections, and upper respiratory infections. Heated indoor air is germ-laden and dusty. Although some asthmatics have attacks from air that is too cold, usually below 20 degrees, children with colds benefit from the humidity of outdoor air.

3. Find alternatives to having kids stay in for recess to make up unfinished work. Kids need the change, exercise, and sunshine, especially in the winter, when outdoor time is so limited anyway. Unproductive, restless or unmotivated children probably need it the most.

4. Create opportunities to drink water. Don't think of trips to the water fountain as time-consuming side trips. Most kids drink only the few ounces of fluid that comes with lunch through the entire day. Too little fluids contribute to poor hydration. Poor hydration results in dry mucous membranes (see above), constipation (the cause of most belly aches in school), headaches (the reason for most visits to the school nurse), fevers, bladder infections, and dry itchy skin.

5. Empower kids by encouraging self-responsibility for maintaining health and comfort by giving positive reinforcement for healthy food choices in the snack or lunch, for appropriate dress, for self-care. Don't foster the idea that health and comfort only come from medicine, a nurse "fixing" it, or others taking care of everything for them. You can do this by: having kids wash their own minor scrapes, hang nails and paper cuts in the classroom, and applying band aides themselves; having kids apply pressure to minor nosebleeds right in class; offering drinks, rest, time out, a change of activity etc. for vague complaints of not feeling good. In this way, you respond to the real need without providing pay offs for being sick. Often, a trip to the nurse is a payoff in that itprovides a diversion, an out when the child doesn't want to do the class work, and this reinforces that being sick or hurt is a way to deal with frustration. Choose not to send kids to the nurse to borrow sweaters, coats, sneakers, boots etc., when these needs arise out of poor choices made by the child. While nurses are happy to give these items to children who do not own them, or who have had a bathroom accident, loaning dry clothes to kids who have rolled in the snow, or who left the needed item home, or in the classroom , encourages continued irresponsibility. Find some natural consequences that reinforce remembering instead. Point out the pay-offs for making good choices, and don't provide pay-offs for poor ones.

6. Think about the messages you are sending to children when you send them to the nurse for minor discomforts associated with normal life events such as loose teeth, choices in clothing, old scrapes or bruises that are obviously well-tended and healing, stuffy noses, invisible itchy spots.

7. Consider hunger or needing to use the bathroom when a child complains of a belly ache, especially if it is late morning or early afternoon. Ask the child to try eating a snack or using the bathroom before sending him to the nurse with a sick message. These are probably the first things she will ask, and many belly ache visits can be attributed to one of the two.

8. Let the child name or describe the problem. Well-meaning teachers often tell children that they look sick, and children buy into the idea because the compassion that accompanies it provides a psychological hug. As an example, recently a child was sitting in the health office waiting for his mother to arrive with pants because he had torn his, and the nurse didn't have any in his size. The child was embarrassed and upset, and had been crying a few minutes before. A staff member stopped in for something else, and asked if he was waiting for his mother. He nodded yes, and she said, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I can see you're sick, you look just awful, you go home and get better. " The child began to cry when his mother arrived with the pants and told her he was sick.

9. Express the expectation that your class will be healthy . Like the expectation of success, children believe you, and will fulfill your expectations. One second grade teacher I know tells her children that for some reason she always has the healthiest class in the school each year. She tells them that it must be the beautiful view from the classroom window, the "feel better" place that she has behind the piano, complete with mats and pillows, or the excellent health practices like hand washing that her students always remember to do because she provides special soap and hand lotion. All of these things help, no doubt, but the most powerful preventative is this teacher's willingness togive psychological and physical hugs, and her expressed expectation of wellness.

10. Convey the message that nurses and other health care workers are resources to help us stay well. If every teacher in your school did just the nine things listed above, there would be fewer sick children in your school and fewer needless visits to the nurse. With all her newly- free time, your school nurse could spend more time on prevention activities such as screening , health education, counseling and safety.

New Year- New Nurse?

Changes are happening around us everywhere.  With the new school year just around the corner, we would like to inform you on the changes we have made in the "school nurse" department.  Finances , budgeting, Title One, State funds, and various other aspects have somewhat dictated the changes that we have made.  However, we are excited about the upcoming year AND the new changes.  We hope you are too!  We look forward to seeing you all soon!

Doretha James, RN-
Janice S. Horne, RN- HMS
Kimm Gaster, RN- BMS/Hidden Lake
Kay Wingate, RN- Highlands/Heard/Montana
Jackie Pearce, RN- DHS
Karen Cooper, RN- Landmark
Elizabeth Nolen, LPN- Selma Street
Melinda Moore, LPN- Cloverdale/Grandview
Donna Arney, LPN- GMS/Girard Elementary
Teresa Moultry, LPN- Kelley Springs/PASS
Jennifer Smith, LPN- NHS/DTC

Today In the Life Of the School Nurse

Today is February 8th, 2011.  No scheduled meetings for nurses. If you need the information from our meeting on January 31st, please email Doretha and let her know.  All nurses should be at their designated locations. If there have been adjustments made for some reason, please contact your team leader or Doretha.  Have a great day!