School Nursing Settings
“Nursing occurs in any environment where there is a healthcare consumer in need of care, information, or advocacy”. School nurses provide care in the school environment and work setting, considering acuity of student needs and the unique attributes of the student body and surrounding community, including the social determinants of health. As dictated by job description, emergency or disease outbreak conditions, school nurses may also provide care to school staff.
The majority of school nurses practice at the local level in individual schools or a cluster of schools. School nurses serve in public, private, independent, and parochial schools starting in early childhood through 12th grade and in transition services for students and youth with disabilities under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and as amended by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services [U.S. DOE], 2020). School nurses work in day care centers and preschools, in school-based health care centers, home care agencies and staffing agencies. Within those settings, the employer can be the local school district, public health agencies, healthcare systems, private school corporations, religious entities, and tribal agencies. Some school nurses make home visits, and in some states school nurses provide services to families with infants and toddlers with disabilities exclusively within their homes. Advocacy is fundamental to school nursing practice in all settings and may prompt flow from local to state or national settings simultaneously.
