The availability of school nurse services is stretched thin at many K-12 schools in the United States—a trend only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous literature has focused on the efficacy of school nurse practices but provides education policymakers with inadequate evidence to inform broader staffing policies. With the goal of closing this gap, this study uses multivariable regression on combined school nursing employment and student health and academic data to determine whether full-time school nurses have a greater impact on student health and wellbeing than part-time nurses. Findings show that full-time nurses correlate with better health and academic outcomes and have a detectably greater relationship with these outcomes than part-time nurses along several, but not all, measures studied. Recommendations for further research and policy action with respect to school nurses include increased data transparency, additional full-time school nurse hiring and funding, and the promotion of school nursing career paths.
Emma van Lieshout (Fri,) studied this question.