Say ‘ahh’

WASILLA — A convenient headache or stomachache may not be enough to send a child home from school, but at Iditarod Elementary it’s a good way to meet Sharon Powder.

Powder has been the school nurse at Iditarod for the past 17 years and has seen her share of playground bumps and bruises. While she has a wealth of experience to draw from, what keeps her coming back each school year is variety.

“The building never changes, my office doesn’t change much, but the kids and the staff have certainly changed,” she said. And now she’s seeing the children of some of the first students she treated.

“That has just now started,” she said. “I thought it would be weird, but it’s not too bad. It’s kind of exciting, really, to see that.”

Frontiersman: What is the role of the school nurse?

Powder: Well, I’d say that no matter whether you’re at elementary, middle school or high school, you’re an advocate for the children. That’s the beginning umbrella of the role. From there on you do everything from health, obviously, then there are nurses in the high school that do much more. Our role is huge and varied and it is hard to describe. We act as counselors, we’re certainly there for the kids if they’ve had a rough day. We make their day better and off they go.

F: In schools today, what can a school nurse do and what can’t a school nurse do?

P: We have doctors orders we follow. We can’t give over-the-counter medication, we can’t give things that parents just send in and say, “Here, we want our child to have this.” We have to have a doctor’s protocol that you follow. That’s a hard question, because we do so many things.

F: What type of training do you need to be a school nurse?

P: In the Mat-Su School District, you have to have a bachelor’s in nursing. You have to have four years of training to be a school nurse. We all have different backgrounds before becoming a school nurse, I think. My background is in psych.

F: For you to stay here 17 years, there’s obviously something about the job you enjoy.

P: It’s always changing. We deal with lot of medical issues we never dealt with before, so it’s interesting. Part of it is autonomy. Autonomy can be scary, but it’s also rewarding. It’s a lot of responsibility, so you really feel worthwhile. There are days it can be stressful and you think, “Oh, my gosh, this is really hard.” And there are days when you have such a really good time.

F: For this school year, H1N1 has been a big health issue across the country, including public schools. How has that affected your job as a school nurse?

P: In the beginning of the year, because H1N1 was sort of an unknown as to what we would be dealing with and parents were unsure of what was happening, I think we just had to be more clear about information and providing information to parents. Asking parents to please, don’t send children to school if they’re sick. We had a really, really good response from parents keeping their kids home. It worked really well this year, as long as we kept them informed. The classroom teachers also took on a lot of responsibility making sure there was a lot of monitoring of hand-washing and more education at the beginning of the year.

F: Over the past 17 years, how attuned has your “baloney” meter become?

P: It’s an honest question, and to answer honestly, with experience you learn to read children better. Obviously, part of it is when you have the same kids who go from kindergarten to fifth grade, you get to know them well. You know what you can say to them. My baloney meter is pretty high, but I have to be careful that I still listen to the kids.

F: Is there any particular day of the week that’s the busiest in the school nurse’s office?

P: Not on an average week, but maybe when we first come back from a longer break. Maybe that’s just due to the kids being tired and having had a really good time at home and missing their families.

F: If someone comes in with an ailment and you suspect it’s not legitimate, what do you say?

P: I do a health assessment, because maybe that’s the day they really are sick. We always check that out, then call home … and let the parents decide. … Once they understand the school nurse is for when they are really sick and not because they want to get out of class, then they know.

F: What is a typical ailment you see?

P: I think headaches and stomachaches are the most predominant. Kids have colds and understand they can still stay in school if they’re washing their hands and taking care of themselves. A stomachache really makes it hard for them to learn.

F: What’s the most creative ailment a child has brought to you to get out of class?

P: I don’t know about getting out of class, but one of my favorites that I still remember is one little girl came running in. She was a kindergartner and she was saying, “My scissors bit me! My scissors bit me!” She had a little cut on her lip. She somehow cut her lip. The other one was a little one who came down with a stomachache and we decided they weren’t sick. We decided they could go back to class, but they wanted ice. “OK, you can have some ice.” They walked in the classroom with ice on their stomach and the teacher asked, “What’s going on,” and the child said, “I think ice will help” — not to eat, but to just put on the outside of their stomach.

F: What’s the range of injuries you see at an elementary school?

P: We’ve had skull fractures, we’ve had big puncture wounds, certainly lots of broken bones, we’ve had kids that their asthma was so bad it was fearful. When I first started there was an injury and the child started to go into shock, and that was very scary. There’s been a lot of times you really have to make some real solid nursing decisions and do your job.

F: What’s something people may not know about being a school nurse?

P: Just being in the school, being part of a school and being able to participate in the educational stuff the kids do is cool. I’ve done the geography bee, so I’m a nurse in the school, but I’m also a part of the school. I’ve coached cross-country and track and other nurses do all sorts of things like that.

F: When you first started, what were the main health concerns for children, and what are they today?

P: There are a lot more children with asthma, we certainly see more diabetics. Wasilla itself has grown and the borough has grown, so maybe that’s part of it. (Weight) has been more of a problem. Probably about five years ago or so I started noticing the kids were coming in heavier.

F: How many bandages do you go through over the course of a school year?

P: I don’t know exactly how many because I never counted, but I can assure you it’s a lot.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.