This week is National Nurses Week, and May 9 is National School Nurse Day, a time to recognize and honor nurses’ daily contributions to education. HISD school nurses provide invaluable services across the district every day to keep students healthy and ready to learn.

“School Nurses are trailblazers for children’s health,” said Gwendolyn Johnson, HISD’s manager of Health and Medical Services. “They find innovative ways to help students and their families deal with diagnoses of chronic illnesses like diabetes or asthma and manage symptoms and administer medication.”   

School nurses contribute every day to the health of students by:

• Advocating for students’ health and safety at the district and state policy levels
• Understand emergency signs and symptoms with clinical assessments
• Collect data and put systems into place that support positive student outcomes
• Adhere to standards of practice to safeguard student health and safety
• Combat school and community health barriers by partnering with stakeholders to advocate for healthy communities

Thanks to school nurses, teachers have more time with their students every day to ensure they are healthy, happy, and ready to learn.

For more information, see National Association of School Nurses at https://www.nasn.org/advocacy/school-nurse-day.