RICHMOND, Va. -- A Richmond parent wants every school to have a nurse on-site after learning that her child’s pre-school learning center shares a nurse with an elementary school.
Mariah White, who has a three-year-old son at the Pre-School Learning Center at Mary Scott, said she immediately wanted as much medical information as possible about her son’s condition when the school called to report he was ill on Monday.
But she said those details never came because her son never saw the school nurse.
“I was just so upset that I had to go get my child, and I didn’t know what was wrong,” White said.
White said she was shocked to learn Mary Scott does not have a nurse on staff, instead, a Richmond Public Schools spokesperson said there is a full-time nurse at nearby Ginter Park Elementary that serves the 570 students at both schools.
The spokesperson also said staff at Mary Scott is trained to handle first aid and minor incidents.
But, Mary Scott isn’t exactly next door to Ginter Park and that concerns White.
“If you have to share a nurse let it be closer than Ginter Park,” White said.
State law does not require school systems to place a nurse in every school.
The Chesterfield County Health Department, which supplies the nurses for Chesterfield schools said nurses share schools at every grade level, and clinical assistants, who are not trained medical professionals are at every school.
A Henrico County Schools spokesperson said some elementary schools have untrained medical professionals on site instead of nurses, but by next school year the system will have licensed nurses in every school.
