As the measles outbreak continues throughout the nation, the nurses in the health center stay wary of the measles, according to nurse coordinator Kandyce Hardie.
“We’re keeping a close eye on—we, as in the entire county and state of school nurses—…on the measles outbreak that’s going on in the country just because we have to make sure that our students and staff are up to date on their immunizations for that,” Hardie said. “We keep track of (those records) in case of an outbreak, so…we’re keeping that within sight.”
Despite being on the lookout for measles, Hardie said the nurses continue their normal routines after recently finishing notifying teachers about health concerns of their students at the beginning of the semester.
Hardie said, “At the beginning of each semester, we work to get students who have high risk of health concerns, like asthma,…diabetes, seizures, disorders and life-threatening allergies. We send out plans to teachers so they’re aware of if those students are in their classroom or not.”
Although the nurses have a plethora of jobs to do, a few CHS students—nurses’ aides—help out the nurses with small jobs.
One of these nurses’ aides is senior Katie Popcheff. According to Popcheff, the job consists of small tasks, such as running passes and helping students to class.
“The past couple of days, I had to wheel a kid though the lunch line, and just today I had to walk a girl to class just in case she, like, fainted or something,” Popcheff said. “I haven’t had to run passes as much…so, (it is) pretty uneventful.”