INSIGHTS
School nurses: An investment in student achievement
According to state and national data, chronic absenteeism — which has a profoundly negative effect on student achievement — is closely correlated with ongoing and/or unmet health care needs (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). For example, in a recent survey of high school students in Florida, 92.4% of respondents indicated that health reasons were “sometimes” or “usually” the cause of their absences (Brundage, Castillo, & Batsche, 2017).
Health and Attendance: The Critical Role of School Nurses in Reducing Chronic Absence
School health providers, and particularly school nurses, are positioned to be at the forefront of
efforts to reduce chronic absence. In fact, the school nursing profession was launched in
response to poor attendance after an outbreak of infectious eye disease in New York City that
was keeping children out of school. However, school nurses have been largely underutilized in
schools’ attendance improvement strategies (Schumacher, 2002). For decades schools and
school districts have focused their attention on truancy or unexcused absences, as a result,
excused absences including those related to health have largely been unaddressed.
Healthy and Ready to Learn: School Nurses Improve Equity and Access
The combination of children’s health and education intertwine to determine their futures; the health and educational paths of a community of children combine to lay the foundation for powerful forces that benefit or hinder a nation of communities. Health is inextricably tied to student readiness to learn, and education is a social determinant of health that predicts a person’s future success, and the health of his or her own children (CDC, 2015; RWJF, 2016). The CDC defines social determinants as the “…conditions in the environments in which people live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks” (CDC, 2015, para. 1).