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Nurses Continued from Page 1
Gornstein-Talotti is tired;
she comes in early every day
and hasn’t eaten lunch since
the school year began four
weeks ago.

She isn’t the only school
nurse experiencing burnout.

In a Sept. 21 survey by the
Philadelphia Federation of
Teachers — the union of which
Philadelphia public school
nurses are a part — many
nurses mentioned the amount
of stress they experienced and
the need for additional help
and resources in schools.

Michele Perloff, the school
nurse at Albert M. Greenfield
Elementary School, believes
that some just don’t under-
stand what goes into the job.

“This is not just giving out
boo-boo Band-Aids and ice,”
she said.

For some Jewish school
nurses, their Jewish values
keep them coming back.

“Repairing the world,
giving help anywhere that it’s
needed, loving your neighbor
as yourself,” said Jessica Rose,
the nurse at Kohelet Yeshiva in
Merion Station.

But the commitment isn’t
always easy.

Perloff just returned to
Greenfield after being hospi-
talized with a kidney infection.

Though no longer sick, she cut
her medical leave short because
the school of 680 students
was short-staffed on medical
professionals. “I probably came back a
little too soon, but I need to be
here,” Perloff said.

Like Gornstein-Talotti,
Perloff has skipped lunch to
treat the kids coming into her
office. The school district now
mandates testing for asymp-
tomatic children, per the
recommendations of school
nurses. But nurses say they
don’t have the time to process
all of the paperwork that comes
with documenting testing data
and consent forms, in addition
to paperwork for non-COVID
ailments. When a student bumps their
head on the playground and
comes into the nurse’s office,
for example, the nurse must
conduct a concussive head
check, complete documen-
tation and call the child’s
caregiver. In addition to updating
testing documents for hundreds
of students, a single nurse is
responsible for contract tracing
at their respective schools,
despite the school district telling
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them in August that it would
not be their responsibility.

“Here we are four weeks
later, and we’re doing all the
contact tracing,” Perloff said.

Perloff has help from two
Jefferson and Drexel University
nursing students twice a week
but still feels overwhelmed.

Risa Babitt, a nurse at
Stephen Decatur Elementary
School, also is expecting student
help in the coming weeks. She
is working 30 extra hours per
week to conduct contact tracing.

Perloff and Babitt are not
alone. According
to the
Philadelphia Federation of
Teachers, 52.6% of schools
have contact tracing completed
by school nurses, 30.9%
completed by nurses and the
Philadelphia Department of
Public Health, and 6.2% of
schools have contact tracing
done solely by the PDPH.

According to Perloff, there
are 17 schools in the district
without school nurses; seven
nurses are on medical leave.

The school nurse-to-student
ratio stands at 1:1,500.

Even in private schools,
there’s a nurse shortage, Rose
said. When Rose worked at a
public school, a school nurse
there would visit a private
school a couple of days a
week to conduct checkups on
students who needed one.

“Private school kids also
need attention and help and
care, more than just a day or
two here and there,” Rose said.

Though understaffed, these
nurses still feel as though
they are the lucky ones; they
have school administration
that supports them; their
schools enforce mask-wearing
and social distancing when
necessary. Lack of support for nurses
has come from elsewhere, they
said. The school district changes
COVID guidelines frequently.

There’s already been more than
one COVID testing protocol
change this year and, by the
time nurses adjust to the new
JEWISH EXPONENT
Jessica Rose is the school nurse at Kohelet Yeshiva in Merion Station.

Courtesy of Jessica Rose
guidelines, they change again.

Gornstein-Talotti said this
makes communicating with
parents difficult. If a student
is sent home with COVID-like
symptoms or has to be isolated
after testing positive, parents
can get confused by out-of-
date information on the school
district’s website that conflicts
with a school nurse’s instruc-
tions for the child.

“When we don’t know what
we’re doing, or [parents] hear
something else from someone
else’s parents, it makes us look
bad,” Gorstein-Talotti said.

Within the school, teachers
want nurses to be more asser-
tive in testing students and
sending them home. For Babitt,
it’s just not possible because of
a lack of time and resources.

“We’re being seen as the bad
guys in the building,” she said.

However, the greatest
frustration for the nurses is
the lack of support from the
school district, where they
are seen as second fiddle to
teachers, though both groups
are members of the teacher’s
union. Because they are part of
the union, school nurses
are required to have a
license. According to Perloff,
most school nurses have
backgrounds that required
additional medical certifica-
tions, as the school district
wants “very highly qualified,
educated, experienced people.”
Yet school nurses cannot
attain National
Board Certification with as much ease
as teachers, Gornstein-Talotti
said. Therefore, they are not
eligible to receive the additional
compensation teachers can
receive when they pursue
additional certifications.

The pay disparity between
teachers and school nurses can
reach up to $15,000, Gornstein-
Talotti said.

“We’re doing two full-time
jobs as one person, not being
compensated,” Babitt said.

Even with a love for the job,
sticking with being a school
nurse is something Babitt is
finding hard to do. As she
nears retirement age, she’s
considering expediting when
she says farewell to being a
school medical professional.

“I was thinking of going
out a year from this coming
January,” Babitt said. “But now
I’m thinking sooner.” l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM