Rutherford County Schools in need of additional nurses for ‘medically fragile’ students

A stock image of a child receiving a checkup from a nurse. (Photo provided by Pexels) 

Rutherford County School leaders noted the need for more school nurses in the district at Tuesday’s Board of Education work session meeting.

Rutherford County Schools Director Dr. James Sullivan said during the meeting that the Health Services Department recently requested funding for at least two new school nurse positions due to the growing number of students with medical needs in the district, particularly at schools like Blackman Elementary School, Rockvale High School, and Riverdale High School. He said the district is currently exploring how to fund the two new positions in the district budget moving forward.

“These are not budgeted currently,” he said. “They’re necessary, and we have to have them.”

Claire Maxwell, the board’s new chair, said she supports the measure, but added that she would like to see the district hire one additional nurse at each high school for “medically fragile” students.

“The funding isn’t there, but in a perfect world, that’s where I think we need to be, because our numbers of medically fragile students are only increasing and they are increasing as our [student] population is increasing as well,” she said.

Board member Butch Vaughn also voiced his support for such a measure, which the board is expected to revisit at its next meeting.  

“What a lot of people don't realize is [for] these kids that are medically fragile, one event without proper care could cost them their lives,” he said.

In other business, the board sworn in Maxwell as its new chair and Frances Rosales as its vice chair at its special call meeting on Tuesday. The decision comes after the Aug. 1 election, where voters re-elected Maxwell and Rosales to serve on the board.

The board also officially welcomed its newest members: Vaughn, a former district principal who won the Zone 6 seat previously held by Shelia Bratton after she decided not to run for re-election, and Stan Vaught, who joined the Board representing Zone 2 after previously serving as a member of the Rutherford County Commission. Caleb Tidwell also won re-election for Zone 3 after being originally elected in 2022.