By Jackie Mader
Originally posted by The Hechinger Report on November 16, 2014.
“…In recent years, the number of school nurses in the state has fluctuated. In 2008, 20 districts were without a school nurse. By 2010, that number dwindled to two districts. By 2011, though, the number of districts without nurses had skyrocketed to 14, which a state report attributes to the “economy and elimination of time limited grants.”
One reason is that many school districts decide they simply can’t afford to have a nurse, said Estelle Watts, the state’s school nurse consultant for the Mississippi Office of Healthy Schools.
Employing a school nurse often comes down to funding decisions by individual districts and how they budget the little money they have. Since 1997, the state has only fully funded schools twice, which means cash-strapped districts have had to cut teachers and skimp on supplies at a time when they are also expected to upgrade technology for new, online exams rolling out this spring…”
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