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Dr Shapiro completed his undergraduate education at UC San Diego earning a B S in Biochemistry and Cell Biology and a B A in Political Science He furthered his education at UCLA where he earned a Masters Degree in Public…
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Is It Really All About the Children?
While enjoying a cup of coffee and the local Sunday paper earlier today, I came across an article which questions a basic premise I have...that it is all about the children. Now deep down I really do believe that most (if not all) share in this ideal. But after reading this article, one in which sheds light on a major obstacle diabetic children are encountering in the California public school system, I feel nothing but disappointment. Disappointment and frustration that children would be used as pawns (a term so appropriately used by one of the parents interviewed for the article) in something solely motivated by politics and preserving one's own.
Now of course I encourage you all to take a look at this article in its entirety (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/23/local/me-lopez23), but the key points of interest are as follows:
- In 2007, with one of the poorest nurse-to-student ratios in the nation, parents in California sued the state seeking assistance and aid for their diabetic children while attending public school.
- The outcome of this lawsuit led to a settlement in which nonmedical school personnel would be trained to deliver insulin to diabetic children (something already being done in 30 states and something I would be comfortable with if the training were to be monitored and performed by licensed medical diabetic professionals).
- Shortly thereafter, numerous nursing organizations responded with their own lawsuit, contending only a medical professional should be allowed to administer insulin when on school grounds.
- And just over 1 week ago, a judge agreed and ruled in favor of the nurses.
As a child in the California public school system years ago, I certainly recall having a nurse on the school grounds. And not realizing the importance of this when I was young, I certainly would enjoy this being a staple in every school our children can be found today, public or private. But unfortunately, the funds today just do not exist to support and place a nurse on the campus of every public school...something I stress again I wish not to be the case.
But is the answer to this dilemma that no one be present to assist and aid our children? I think not. Our children are just too important to tolerate this.
Dr. Jeremy
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Displaying comments 20-1 of 20
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And in response to the original question, I believe that once of school age kids should be able to do their own injections. But I do feel a school nurse is necessary.
Most children with diabetes have type 1 diabetes which IS insulin dependent (IDDM), and is caused by attack on the insulin-producing islet cells of the pancreas by a runaway immune system. The causation is mostly genetic but other factors (not excessive food and lack of exercise) are involved (under research).
So don't blame parents for IDDM and in these tough economic times how are people expected to work and treat their diabetic kids. Families of diabetics are under enough stress just from the disease.Here in Australia we have a world class public health system and public schools where designated and trained individuals (generally not nurses) administer insulin according to the child's continually Dr.-monitored prescription. No worries mate!With the western world suffering a medical work force crisis, what are your nurses thinking? Surely not about the children!Info contained within is accurate, to the best of my knowledge, if very abbreviated. Wishing you well with getting out the public health message, (a healthy child is usually a happy and smart child). Lesley
I agree with you. I feel that an issue of this importance should be addressed even if district taxes have to be raised a little to have the professionals on site.
The one thing that bothers me as a parent who went to gym as part of a curriculum in the late 70's through 1990 in NY Public schools, many districts are now not making gym mandatory and cutting back on after school sports and physical activity in general.
This is terrible for our childrens health, especially now with the video games and comuter games that many kids neglect physical activity for. I do understand that only certain diabetes are attributed to overweight kids who do not excercise, and it is not a cure-all but I think the excercise is very important as well.
From my experiences in LAUSD, at Kester, we parents donate money throughout the year to keep our school nurse on staff, else we would not have a nurse. I know that many LAUSD schools and communities don't have this 'luxury' and it's sad and appalling.
If our society actually shuffled our priorities to where they belong, it would be 'all about the children'. Instead, it is 'all about the money'.
wish we could spend less money making movies, paying football, basketball and baseball stars and start focusing on keeping people healthy in both body and mind.
If your children are as valuable to you as mine are to me, perhaps they are valuable enough for you to pay a nurse to attend on them, instead of reaching into my pocket for money that rightly belongs to my children. Or do you feel that I OWE your kids, somehow? Should I get a third job too?
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If you want any private nursing done for your particular child, take up a collection among those who want one and hire her yourself. And stop thinking my pockets are a free lunch counter for anything you believe your kids DESERVE.
Please contact me at katesmith2@earthlink.net. Across the country, school administrators have lost sight of the Educational Mission. Our children are being betrayed by the very system we entrust to educate and nurture their minds, bodies, and spirits.
My special-needs daughter was physcially and emotionally abused at school, and when I objected, the retaliation was so severe that it became the nation's most expensive, most complex, and the U.S. Office of Civil Rights called it the most pathetic case of administrative due process in the history of our nation.
Diana Rigby, the Special Education Director, was the first school administrator found guilty of IDEA and ADA. That year, she was promoted to Assistant Superintendent and awarded State Administraotr of the Year by Santa Barbara COE Bill Cirone, the most powerful county superintendent in the U. S.
Bill Cirone, and SB D.A. TOM SNEDDON (of the Michael Jackson fiasco) created the Truancy and Parent Accountability Program. It spread throughout the country and has gripped our national school system in a School-Polito Industrial Complex. (There is an unholy alliance between the school, law enforcement, and the non-profit agencies that feed at the Public Fundiing Trough.)
Struggling-in-school students are criminalized by truancy, "zero tolerance," or class failure. (By law, they are to be tested, diagnosed and treated for learning disabilities or problems.)
Rather than being educated and supported, low socio-economic students (blacks and Hispanics) are pushed into "jail schools," educational wastelands where they bond with other victims and form "gangs." They never return to normal society.
But school test scores improve. There is no due process or public defense---there is no school self-scrutiny. Boards are co-opted and atuocratic programs, policies, and practices are established and maintained.
Youth violence increases to the point that the next machination is a fascistic police force, funded by the schools, and today, in Carpinteria, the city council will pass a "day curfew" so that any youth on the streets can be detained, interrogated, and charged with a misdemeanor.
Soon, there will be a school-funded "under cover" inteligence agent in every school in Santa Barbara. They will force targeted students to be "snitches;" drive-by shootings and other violence will ensue, as "snitching" is a serious offence in gang culture.
IDEA and ADA mandates are ignored; there is systematic and systemic denial of rights under color of law; there is institutionalized racism in the schools. "Dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline" naacp.org explains the Machiavellian mechanism; ACLU and Marian Wright Edelman's Children's Defense Fund have issued a Call to Action.
In my daughter's case, the school district refused to allow the teachers to fill out a questionnaire for a nationally-known developmental pediatrician. My case cost me 1.5 million. My funds have been put under trusteeship and I cannot pay for lawyers but that is for the best: this is now a grass-roots revolution---we are in the midst of a Parent-Student-Teacher Civil Rights Movement.
At the November 18, 2008 SBSD School Board meeting, the parents had an uprising---and we are exposing corruption. No longer will guilty administrators be passed on to unsuspecting districts! (This is worse than the Catholic Priest Scandal where child molestors who were found out were passed on to other parishes!)
I ran for the SBSD School Board and was ILLEGALLY DISQUALIFIED by Bill Cirone---and I still got 17,000. The People are mobilizing against tyranny!
Please contact me. Our county is facing a $32 MILLION liability from fraudulent billing in ADMHA---the schools are "double-dipping"---receiving state and federal funds for special education services AND THEY BILL ADMHA FOR THE SAME SERVICES. (Uh, that's nothing compared to the rest of the story!)
Bill Cirone's PERSONAL CREDIT CARD has been paid for by the SELPA for twenty years. The oversight committee, the Joint Powers Agency, (of which Bill Cirone is a permanent member) has paid up to $6,000 per month of sight-unseen charges.
The FBI is moving in. (The home-office files of the recently-retired SELPA accountant are being shredded.)
This is a Racketeering-Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO). We need your help to expose this corruption, to restore justice in our schools, and return to Democratic Education.
God Bless America!
Kate Smith, aka "LONGSTORY"
With respect, I would like to say that the real issue is being overlooked. I grew up in the 1950's when childhood obesity was rare and diabetes was almost unheard of. I was an obese child. I am just now, at age 58, getting some much needed psychological counseling. I was obese because my mother allowed it. She meant well, but she was trying to compensate for a certain lack of emotional support. If it is "all about the children", why do we allow them to become obese and therefore require nurses to take care of them? I believe it is more about the adults who would sacrifice their children's health over having their children dislike them for withholding unhealthy food. Just my opinion.
Lucky for my child, the classroom teacher recognized that the injury required immediate attention and notified me. This happened during the morning hours of the day. I hate to think what would have happened had the teacher ignored my child.
A volunteer nurse saved another childs sight with quick attention and contact of the parents to receive medical attention.
No child should be without appropriate medical attention when necessary. It is a sad declaration about our socities lack of value of our children that a nurse is not present on every school campus during all school hours. Every child deserve to be protected from danger which must include trained personel when emergencied arrise.