Board Funds DCHS School Nurse Position

The Board of Education has found the funds to keep a full time nurse at DCHS through the end of this school year.
During Monday night’s special meeting, the Board voted to transfer $12,242 from another budgetary line item in the general purpose school budget in order to fund this full time nurse through the remainder of 2014-15 year.
School officials had hoped to avoid having to come up with local funds after taking action in November to use money from the special education general purpose budget for the position.
On November 20, the Board voted to add a full time nurse at DCHS to meet the nursing needs of a student who had enrolled there earlier in the school year. Funds for the position were appropriated from the Special Education General Purpose Budget. While the nurse, Wade Ferrell served this particular student, he was also available to attend to other DCHS students with medical issues. But under terms of the arrangement, should this student move away, transfer out of the school system, or no longer need this nursing care on the advice of a physician, the school system would no longer be able to fund this nurse from Special Education.
The student and his family have now relocated to another state.
In addition to Ferrell, the school system employs four other nurses, Chandra Adcock, Kim Turner, Christie Driver, and Joanie Williams. All are registered nurses. Prior to adding a full time school nurse at DCHS, each school had its own nurse except for DeKalb Middle School and DeKalb County High School which had to share a nurse. According to Director Mark Willoughby, the state provides funding for one school nurse per three thousand students. Any other nurses must be funded locally.
Because of the growing student population and children with chronic conditions including diabetes, Dee Anna Reynolds, Coordinated School Health Coordinator said during the September school board meeting that another nurse is needed. Three parents, Darlene Evans, Ashley Bryant, and Glenda Davis, who all have children with diabetes also addressed the board that month asking the members to find the funds to hire another school nurse to help meet the medical needs of their children and others in the school system.
Since this year’s general purpose school budget does not provide funding for a new school nurse position for the entire year, Director Willoughby said in September that he would assign a substitute nurse at the high school to meet the needs until the board could reach a resolution on how to fund a full time position. The substitute nurse, Ferrell, has been working there since.
Funding for this position is only through the end of this school year. The school board will have to revisit the issue when formulating a budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year.