In order to provide better health services for students throughout Riverside School District 96, board members agreed last week to allow Superintendent Jonathan Lamberson to hire one more full-time nurse.
The change will mean that the district will have three nurses providing health services in the five-school district. Two of those nurses will be full-timers, while the third will remain part time.
“We’ve seen the need [for additional nursing help] as health needs have changed,” said Janice Limperis, principal at Central School, the largest of the district’s elementary schools.
Lamberson noted that not only has the district’s enrollment jumped by about 300 students in the past five years, the number of students requiring daily health services has also increased.
“At one point there were no children in the district with Type 1 diabetes,” he said. “There was no need for tests or for a midday shot. Today we have several children with diabetes. There’s also the issue of children with allergies or with medication that needs to be dispensed.”
One nurse will be stationed full time at the Central School/Hauser Junior High campus in Riverside, where some 70 percent of all District 96 students attend classes. The two other nurses will split their time between the three remaining elementary schools, Ames and Blythe Park in Riverside and Hollywood in Brookfield.
Currently, Central/Hauser has a school nurse in the building 80 percent or more of the time. The other schools share a part-time nurse, meaning they have direct access to a nurse only 20 to 40 percent of the time.
Some schools have a nurse in the building just one day a week, Lamberson said, which has caused concern among some parents.
“With just 1.8 full-time equivalents for five buildings, it’s obvious that some school was getting less time,” said Limperis, who did the analysis on health services for the district.
Under the new arrangement, nurses should be available 100 percent of the time at the schools that require their services most often. In addition, one full-time nurse will also be responsible for maintaining student health records and manage the district’s various health programs.
“We’ll be able to cover virtually all of the elementary schools up to nearly four days a week,” Lamberson said.
The District 96 school board has in the past discussed hiring health aides instead of nurses to provide services, but has rejected that avenue, favoring the expertise of nurses instead.
“The role has really increased significantly,” Lamberson said.
However, that expertise also comes with a price tag. The district will pay between $28 and $33 per hour for a certified nurse, depending on experience, Lamberson said.
Health aides would be paid between $16 and $19 per hour, per District 96’s contract. The district does not employ any health aides at this time.