Today is National School Nurse Day and there are three school building nurses with the Greene County School District.

The newest staff nurse is Leta Bauer at the elementary building. She was not yet an employee of the school district as the COVID-19 pandemic began last year. When she was hired, she had a couple of weeks to get settled into her new role.

“It was a challenge because school nursing, as I’m used to hospital nursing, and it’s just a totally different element, and then for COVID-19 it’s new for everybody. So I really do thank (middle school nurse) Jill (Wanninger), (high school nurse) Ann (Hicks) and (Superintendent) Mr. (Tim) Christensen, we had a lot of meetings, a lot of kind of prep time before we knew how we were going to handle it. So that the rules were kind of cohesive through all of the buildings, and that was very beneficial.”

Both Wanninger and Hicks believe mask wearing has helped students continue to stay in school and if there was an exposure, less kids had to be quarantined because they were wearing masks. Bauer describes how she underestimated how long this pandemic would last.

“Well I think when it all started, I didn’t imagine that it would go past May (of last year) and here we are headed towards another May. The magnitude of it, I don’t think anyone really expected it to last as long as it had. But I think overall, the ability for the kids to adapt and adjust to it has been quite remarkable.”

Remember to thank a school nurse today.