10 OPINIONS jlabmag.com
Should we have more than one nurses office? by Annelise Hanshaw photo by Endia Sears illustration by Jillian Moore
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ushing through the halls, heart beating fast, and arriving feeling worse than before. This is one of the conflicts of having just one health room. “Before West opened, we had two nurse offices,” principal John Faulkenberry said. Years ago, there was a second nurse office in the school’s A building. It is now gone and causes trouble for students who are far from the one we have currently. “It’s harder for students that need medical attention to go from the top of one building to the bottom of another,” senior Amber Moody said. When students are feeling sick the last thing they want to do is rush to the only health room; it only makes them feel worse. “It’d be nice [to have another health room]. One of the challenges of LSHS is how spread out it is,”
Faulkenberry said. I think that in order to ensure a healthy experience, we should bring back the nurse office in A building. Students with asthma may need treatment quickly and rushing down the stairs and to another building is only going to make it worse. “The district sets staffing ratios and we’re able to serve our students with just one nurse,” Faulkenberry said. After talking with the principal and some students, I learned that the nurse leaves once a day to check on another school close by. Some students complain that the assistants then left to do intake are not helpful. “You have to weigh all the decisions,” Faulkenberry said. “If we were able to spend some amount of money for a new staff person, I would like for it to be a teacher.” There are always those choices, and it all depends on priorities. During
flu season, it seems pretty important to have a second health room or even nurse on hand. “The nurse is technically put here by the district,” Faulkenberry said. “It’d take the district giving us more money.” I think that if the district provided a part-time nurse during the times where sickness and medical attention is more common, we could guarantee a healthier school. With the new attendance policy, the health of students needs to be focused on even more. The expectation of us going to school needs to be met by the same determination to keep us healthy. If we were to have another nurse office, students would be healthier. Being healthy affects happiness; this could be a huge improvement to the school.