Dive Brief:
- Only 8% of school nurses plan to stay in the education sector until they retire, and 71% expect to keep working in schools for just six more years or less, according to a report released in April by Soliant Health, a healthcare staffing provider.
- Preliminary survey findings from the National Association of School Nurses show that 66% of school nurses plan to stay in schools for three to five years. Among those who planned to leave, 65% said they would retire, according to NASN.
- The retention rate data is raising red flags about the stability of the school nursing workforce and employees' ability to sustainably take care of students.
Dive Insight:
Current staffing shortages are the biggest factor cited by school nurses for burnout, Soliant found. Other contributors include student behavioral problems, high caseloads, safety concerns and administrative demands.
Compensation concerns also played a role in school nurse burnout, the Soliant report said.
The school nurse workforce has always been unstable, but district budget cuts and increased scrutiny from parents adds a new layer to the issue, said Lynn Nelson, board president of NASN.
Because most states don’t have a legal mandate as to how many nurses are required to work in a school district, Nelson said, school nurses are often more vulnerable to layoffs. As more districts face unstable budgets amid declining enrollment this year, school nurses are facing even more uncertainty with their roles.
“Nowhere else as a nurse do you take a job not knowing from year to year if you're going to have it the next year, and that's really difficult for people,” Nelson said.
Nelson added that parents — often made up of a small, but very vocal group — can sometimes be “vile” toward school nurses as pushback persists over children's vaccinations or whether to keep students home when they are sick.
School nurses play an important role in keeping children safe in the event of health emergencies, she said. Additionally, school nurses can help combat chronic absenteeism, because they can assess a student’s health to determine whether they should go home if they’re not feeling well.
School nurses are often on the front lines in responding to student illness or injury or when they need help managing a chronic condition at school, said Lesley Slaughter, senior vice president at Soliant, in a statement.
“These findings show that school nurse shortages are not just a staffing issue. They are a student support issue,” Slaughter said. “When schools cannot keep those roles filled and supported, the impact is felt by students, families, teachers and administrators.”
