August-September: Crazy mad chaos as the school year begins. Health alerts, unhappy teachers, demanding parents, medication issues, and the always embarrassing moment when you discover two months into the school year you didn't realize you had an epileptic student on board...that sort of thing.
October-November: Hearing and vision screenings all over the place. Mail out referrals that will either be ignored or returned to sender. IEPs and other paperwork.
December-January: Christmas break! Listen to teacher's complain about so-and-so who still can't see the board.
February-March: Morale sinks as the budget proposals and kinks are worked out.
April: No one in education is happy as next year's changes are finalized (e.g. school closings) and state testing approaches. Spring break is a brief, but only brief, respite from the unhappiness.
May-June: Coast into summer. Clean up the medication cabinets, realize with some embarrassment that you've let some expire, or never actually got the right medication authorization paperwork, and breathe a sigh of relief at the epi-pens that went unused. Testing is over, teachers are nicer, parents trust you, and you have two months vacation approaching. The insanity that has happened over the last 9 months is forgotten, and life is good.
It's been a long year, but we're coasting into break now (particularly with that lice policy off my plate). Happy Friday!
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Amazed at all you do... and to do it given the fast-paced bursts of chaos and tears from the kids is even more amazing.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first year as a school nurse, and I just realized that a kid with an anaphylactic allergy who had to use an Epipen at school two years ago was not on my list of kids with allergies, and had no Allergy Action Plan on file (a law in my state)....So glad to realize that I may not be the only one this kind of thing has happened to :).
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work!
Likewise! Congratulations on almost surviving your first year. :) And yeah, people hate to acknowledge it, but mistakes do happen and kids can fall through cracks on occasion. We do our best to minimize those occurrences, and just keep calm and carry on!
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