The Overton County Schools are close to having a nurse at every school in the county.
The School Board has approved hiring a new nurse and planning for a second new nurse during the next budget cycle. Currently, four schools share two nurses. Director Donnie Holman said that while it was a need discovered during COVID, his main concern was the students with chronic diseases who need cyclical treatment, such as diabetic students with insulin.
“People might think that we could you know hire one nurse and have them go to three or four schools,” Holman said. “But a lot of the things have to be done at a certain time of day, which just somewhat requires more than one person.”
Holman said that there are actually several students who need this kind of care, in addition to general first aid. He said that having more nurses also help the school system keep even more up-to-date with students’ health records.
Holman said that the current education formula only funds one nurse for the whole school system. He said that the Board of Education recognizes the importance of nurses in the system, and have taken to funding four other nurses itself.
“Student safety and student health are our top priorities,” Holman said. “We want to always keep them safe and take care of them properly at all times, and then after that, we teach them all we can. During the school day, so to speak, we’re in the place of the parents. That was something that was taught to us in our education courses, ‘in loco parentis,’ in place of the parents. So we want to take care of them first and teach them next.”
Holman said that they are optimistic they can fund a second new nurse during the next budget cycle.
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