By Staff
Special to The Star
Jan. 23, 2002
The National Association of School Nurses, Inc. has proclaimed today as the National School Nurse Day.
The fourth Wednesday in January has been set aside for recognition of school nurses for more than two decades. The purpose is to celebrate the contribution of school nurses toward improving the health of children and to foster better understanding of the expanded school nurse role.
Since 1998, the Riley Foundation has funded school nurses to serve the Meridian Public School District and Lauderdale County School District. This year the School Nurse Role is looking and operating a little differently.
Ask any students in kindergarten through fifth grade how much a brain weighs or how many miles of blood vessels run throughout his body, and he will probably be able to tell you especially if the school nurse has just paid a visit to his classroom.
Through a grant from the Mississippi State Department of Health school nurses have been using the " Know Your Body" curriculum to teach elementary students about their organs and systems.
In the middle schools, specifically in seventh-grade Career Discovery, classes are receiving training about sexual abstinence. Using a new course of study called "Choosing the Best," nurses stress the risks of becoming sexually active during adolescence and the benefits of making the best choices.
School nurses are: Erica Clark, Debra Stegall, Ann Compton, Jeanell Kidd, Robbie McKee, Karen Moulds, Lynn Nave, Marcia Russell, Dianne Shannon, Mary Kay Daniels, Robin Hull, Katherine Rigdon, Cindy Rogers, Kim Rivers and Shelia Wadell.