Well after much contemplation, prayers and weighing out the pros and cons, I will no longer be the nurse at Hamilton Middle School. It all started with a new position opening up in the Health Services Department in our district. As you can imagine, there is no real room for advancement in the nursing field in a school district. Since our district is so large, they have divided us up into clusters where we meet with nurses from schools that are most similar to the school we work at so that we can share stories, ideas, etc. with one another. For those clusters, there is a lead nurse, which at the present time I am the lead nurse for one of our middle school cluster groups. Up until this summer, the only other position to move up to was the Director of Health Services. Now truth be known, I don't honestly think I would EVER want that job. About a month ago, they opened up a new position of Health Services Coordinator. The job sounded appealing in that one of the main roles of that position was being a mentor to the nurses in our district and teaching them procedures on students that perhaps they have not done in the school setting. It would be an ever evolving position as it is new. The only downside was that the contract days for this position were 240, compared to the 187 days I work now, which would mean working summers. Well I went ahead and applied for the position, knowing good and well that there are plenty of other nurses in our district (since there are close to 90 of us) that were more qualified. I ended up being one of three with an interview with a panel of 4 people, including our supervisor. I can tell you I was a nervous wreck - I can't even remember how I answered half the questions, but I left the interview feeling very unimpressed with myself.
About a week later, I heard from my supervisor that they offered the position to one of the other candidates, which honestly was no surprise to me. It was not a huge let down for me at all, and I was not really upset as I felt from the get go there were others more deserving. Well, about a week or so ago, my supervisor contacted me to let me know that she was about to announce to the nurses who their choice was, which happened to be the nurse from Windfern High School in our district. That position holds not only the school nurse position, but also the District CPR Coordinator position which comes with another stipend. She went on to tell me that she really felt I should apply for that position, as she needed someone strong and organized to take over the CPR coordinator position. Now it was not her choice to decide who would get that position, since it is ultimately up to the principal of that campus to choose the nurse, however she said she could recommend to the principal some candidates. She also said if I got the position I could become one of the high school clusters Lead Nurse since I had experience with being a lead nurse for a middle school cluster. She told me to just think about it over the weekend, but to try to decide pretty quickly as school was about to start and we needed to get moving with it.
Well crud. Here I go again, praying, contemplating, and weighing out the pros and cons. First, Windfern is literally a block from where Casen goes to school, however in two years that would be done. The school I am at now, is less than 5 miles from our home, and I honestly never thought I would leave there. But, as much as I have friends at Hamilton, I have very few what I would consider 'very close friends', and as I get older that seems harder and harder to come by. I have recently really been praying about finding good relationships and felt like maybe this was God's answer - moving me to another campus. Right now at Hamilton I see between 90 and 100 kids a day, maybe sometime more. The nurse at Windfern see less than 10, and realistically more like 5. I am a busy body and I have no desire to be bored. My supervisor assured me that that would not be the case, as CPR takes up a lot of time and she had plenty of other jobs she could give to me. She also told me that this would be a stepping stone into the position of Health Services Coordinator, which would most likely come available again in 3-5 years when the nurse that accepted the position will be retiring. Windfern is a high school, which that age comes with a new set of problems. It only has about 350 students because it is a second chance school. Students have to apply to go there and about two thirds of them have records, are teen moms, or have other real issues. The other third are students who are on the fast track and trying to graduate in 3 years. I had a lot to think about!
Monday came and I knew I needed to give an answer. I had already talked with my principal prior to the weekend and told her about the position at Windfern. She felt like I really should interview, as the opportunities are few and far between for us. I still was not positive, but I went ahead and put my name in the hat, interviewed on Wednesday and was offered the job on the spot. I told her I would go home and speak with my husband, even though we had already talked all about it. When I got home and told Shane that I still did not have clarity about it, he felt like God had easily opened this door up and did not understand why I was questioning it. So, I accepted the job.
Honestly, I have no idea when my start date will be. I will not leave Hamilton (since it is such a busy clinic) and go to Windfern until a new nurse is hired and I train her. It will be difficult not starting at my new clinic, as the week before and the first week of school are a very busy time for a school nurse.
Here's to a new adventure . . . .
