Teachers, Nurses, and Medical Care in California Schools
In California, we have a school staffing problem. By many measures, we are the worst in the nation when it comes to putting enough people in place to do the jobs we expect of our schools and districts. With school nurses, the ratios are far too low to meet needs, but the potential consequences for some students are more immediate and more dire.
The federal government has inserted itself into a state legal battle over a law that would press non-nurse staff members into job duties currently delegated to school nurses. Here’s the opening of an article from The San Francisco Chronicle (“Obama administration steps into insulin shot fight” – May 30, 2011).
The Obama administration has stepped into a California case involving 14,000 diabetic schoolchildren, urging the state’s top court to let school employees give insulin shots if no nurses are available.
Two lower courts have ruled that California law allows only licensed doctors and nurses to
