Before Athens students scuttle between buses and classrooms each morning, district school nurse Janalee Stock pulls her office into a parking space, grabs an armful of files and heads to work.
Stock, the only nurse for all seven Athens schools and their nearly 3,000 students, carries a heavy workload on the shoulders of her thin, 5-foot frame ' and in her car, which doubles as an office, she said.
Her workload is close to twice that of the nurses serving in nearby districts such as Alexander, where one nurse, a health aid and a part-time AmeriCorps worker serve more than 1,600 students. Because Ohio does not mandate school health service, the 1,100-student Federal Hocking school district is one of more than 50 districts with no nurse, according to the Ohio Association of School Nurses.
A nationwide shortage of nurses is well-known among many people, but few realize how that translates to health care in the school environment, Stock said.
Healthy People 2010, a plan by federal government agencies in the late 1990s to outline national health objectives, recommended a goal ratio of one nurse per 750 students, far from the ratio Stock manages every day.
But she seems to view the challenge through rose-colored glasses G
Stock said of her helpers.
Amid her colleagues and students, the graduate of Ohio University and Hocking College has made a name for herself as much more than the band-aid lady.
She does her job with a smile on her face and never misses a beat Athens Superintendent Carl Martin said. Stock even drops by periodically to check Martin's blood pressure. She's just totally interested in the well-being of the students and staff he said.
In her thirteenth year with the schools, Stock has chosen to tackle student health risks, including obesity and AIDS, through education and preventative care.
I'm tired of reading about it. I don't think school can be the end-all
but I think they can be a part of it
she said.
And she practices that preaching. The 51-year-old maintains her energy by eating healthy foods (and the occasional chocolate) and running in preparation for a triathlon she'd like to try this summer.
Like many other school nurses in Ohio, she also makes time to research news about nursing and education, including the Healthy People 2010 recommendation of one nurse per 750 students.
The OASN supports those goals but because the state's education budget is tight, Unless we find a way to discover some money
it's not going to happen
said Gail Pohlman, OASN president and school nurse for the Gallia County school district, about 40 miles south of Athens.
Improving school health care in regions of rural poverty, which keeps more families from seeing medical professionals regularly, is especially important to Pohlman. We [school nurses] are the health care professionals that students see in Southeast Ohio
Pohlman said.
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