Ethical Issues Of School Nursing

School nursing continues to make a huge impact on the communities in the United States. We have learned in our classes that Lilian Wald was the first woman to start to implement school nursing in order to help the absenteeism that was occurring in the early 19th century (National Association of School Nurses, 2018). Fast forward some time and in the early 1990’s the Connecticut State Department of Education formed a committee to develop guidelines for students with special health care needs in response to the increasing numbers of children with acute, long-term, and chronic health problems who attended schools in Connecticut, it was named and released in 1992: Serving Student with Special Health Care Needs (National Association of School Nurses,

I also have ethical values that are equally important to me. These include Fidelity, Beneficence, and Veracity. I feel that the revisions that have been made over the years to create the ANA position that stands today have been made to enhance and support the nursing profession today. Many of the earlier policies were based off delegation the nurse could perform as well as education and training requirements. There seems to be no past policy regarding ratios or responsibilities of school nurses for the ANA. With the newest policy approved by the American Nurse Association as of March 16, 2017, stating that the education of health in the school setting is important in the framework of health concept a person has. It also states that school nurses stand as educators, providers, and coordinators of care in this setting and should embrace this advantage to learn and change the health of the population one is caring for (National League of Nursing, 2018). The policy then goes into the recommendation of the ratio of one nurse per 750 students with hopes to get one nurse in each school, with recommendations of modified ratios for children depending on severity of their condition (National League of Nursing, 2018). I believe that the past policies, data collection, and revisions have encompassed important values that were mentioned

After learning so much from nursing school it was evident to see that the building blocks for health, learning, understanding, and drive are all in a community setting. For children who spend a majority of their young life in school systems their education to help them succeed in life would come from the school. Children learn key values that they can take away with them such as social and problem solving skills. But, there is also the opportunity to influence a healthy personal life. School nurses can change children’s lives by performing the screening that they do such as general physical exams, having children come into the office if they don’t feel well, caring for chronically ill or handicapped students and answering general questions they may be afraid to ask and getting the correct knowledge back. The school nurses work as a great resource for growing children in the fact that school nurses work with students from various social determinants of health to help provide opportunities for children. School nurses work to sign children up for federal and state programs and if a child needs a 504 plan the nurse would implement that. School nurses work alongside doctors, as well as if the school has social workers and counselors and acts as a coordinator of care. Seeing this opportunity and its importance to impact younger