I hope everyone had a wonderful and restful summer with family and friends. Back-to-School is around the corner and can be very challenging in organizing your thoughts, time and energy effectively. Let NASN’s Back-to-School Toolkit ease your load by providing you tools for students, families and in your school nursing practice. This reminds me that creativity is an essential part of the critical thinking process in nursing. Creativity is the ability to develop and implement new and better health care solutions for your students, families and school community. I encourage all school nurses to please read, Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child-Calling School Nurses to Action in NASN School Nurse (July 2016) or listen to the NASN Podcast. TSNO members and co-authors, Laurie Combe and Brandy Bowlen highlights their creativity in utilizing the Whole School, Whole Child, Whole Community (ASCD & CDC, 2015) model in providing a coordinated and collaborative approach for the whole child in their school community. Let this inspire and encourage you in advancing your creativity to the next level.

The NASN Framework for the 21st Century School Nursing Practice has been available since 2015. Now is more important than ever to have this posted in your clinic as parents come to visit with you at the beginning of the school year. This dynamic and visual tool offers you a starting point of discussion of the Role of the 21st Century School Nurse and how its health care is student-centered. Let’s speak that same narrative and promote our specialized nursing practice with our parents and in your school community.

I’m pleased to announce TSNO membership is currently at 2,138 strong. My challenge to all TSNO members is to recruit one new member this school year. We can double in size if we all work together in making TSNO stronger, more visible and heard louder at the Capital on legislative issues that effects student’s health care in Texas. So let’s make this a reality, give a fellow nurse colleague an application today and invite them to join.

I wish you all an amazing school year!

Francis Luna

President

All nurses using a standard for credential display ensures that everyone understand just how important and significant our education, licenses, certifications and honors are.

How to display your credentials.

"Individuals with disabilities may use service animals and emotional support animals for a variety of reasons. This guide provides an overview of how major Federal civil rights laws govern the rights of a person requiring a service animal. These laws, as well as instructions on how to file a complaint, are listed in the last section of this publication. Many states also have laws that provide a different definition of service animal. You should check your state’s law and follow the law that offers the most protection for service animals. The document discusses service animals in a number of different settings as the rules and allowances related to access with service animals will vary according to the law applied and the setting."

~ https://adata.org

CDC has developed interim guidance for kindergarten through grade 12 (K–12) district and school administrators for public health actions pertaining to Zika virus infection. This guidance is intended to address concerns about the risk for Zika virus infection in K–12 schools in the continental United States and Hawaii, provide school districts with information for planning school-related activities, and recommend actions that can be taken, in consultation with local public health authorities and government officials, to reduce the potential risk for Zika virus transmission on school premises and among students.