May 2026
Dear School Nurses,
As another school year draws to a close, I find myself thinking about you — all of you. The ones in sprawling health suites and the ones in converted storage rooms. The ones managing complex medication schedules, chronic illness plans, and mental health crises. The ones who knew, long before anyone else in the building, which kids were really struggling.
You did not just “take care of sick kids.” You practiced nursing — real, skilled, professional nursing, inside a system that often underestimates you. And you did it with grace, with precision, and with an open door.
To the nurses who held the line
You were the first face a frightened child saw,
the calm voice when panic filled the room.
You counted breaths before the rest of us
even noticed someone was struggling.
Whether your space was grand or small,
a suite or a single cot.
What filled it was the same:
your presence, your precision, your care.
You managed medications, chronic illness, and
crises that teachers weren’t trained to handle.
You kept records and kept watch,
and kept going, long after others could.
Now, as the halls go quiet
and the last bell finally rings —
rest. You have earned every
unhurried, beautiful, uninterrupted moment of it.
The work you do is not always visible. The seizure that didn’t become a crisis, the child whose asthma was caught before it spiraled, the student who came to your office for the third time that week, not because they were sick but because you were the safest adult in the building — those moments rarely make it into any report. But they are real. And you know it.
This summer, please rest without guilt. You have given so much. The profession is better, and so are countless children, because of the relentless, brilliant nurses who choose school nursing year after year.
With deep respect and gratitude,
