I worked for 23 years in Denton ISD – a middle-sized public school system in North Central Texas, a rapid growth area. For the first 10 years, I was a high school nurse, with about 2000 students and 150 faculty/staff in the building. For the next 13 years, I served as the Director of Health Services, and during those total 23 years, our district opened up 3 more high schools, 12 more elementary schools, 4 additional middle schools, an Advanced Technology Center, two facilities for young children, and several district-wide non-campus buildings! Talk about growth – we had 24,000 students and about 3000 employees by the time I retired in 2009! I was so privileged to be involved with much of the planning required to transition through all that change.
During that time, I also added two other major areas to my responsibilities – employee wellness and district emergency planning. I was fortunate to work with incredibly dedicated and talented school personnel, city officials, county health professionals, and state-wide emergency planners, among many others. It was a time of incredible personal growth and professional improvement, hallmark learning experiences.
The following resources came from those years!
- school safety audit tool
- school nurse orientation checklist
- parent letters for just about any situation
- principal orientation to school health services
- emergency response quick reference flip chart for faculty/staff
- guidelines for parents “when to keep your child home from school”
and many, many more. Please let me know if you are interested in seeing any of these to adapt to your school – I’ll be happy to share them for free! I am also available for consultation on the phone or onsite, fees to be determined at time of contact.