Nurse Bonczyk Notes
Dear Parents,
This year will certainly look and feel different. I wanted to let you know about a few health clinic changes.
We will have a Well clinic and a Sick clinic, which is called the waiting room. The waiting room is where kids who have any of the symptoms listed below will wait for their parent or emergency contact to pick them up. These two rooms are completely separate to limit cross contamination. Per the TEA and Tarrant County Public Health Guidelines, your child must be sent home for additional monitoring and observation. It is strongly recommended that you 1. Isolate your child at home, 2. Avoid unnecessary contact with others and 3. Contact your child’s physician for further guidance.
Covid-19 like Symptoms include:
Fever
Sore Throat
New uncontrolled cough that causes difficulty breathing or in a diagnosed asthmatic or chronic allergic student, a change in baseline
Diarrhea
Vomiting
Abdominal pain
Abnormal taste or smell
New onset of severe headache
Additional relevant symptoms include:
Fatigue
Chills
Congestion or runny nose
Significant muscle pain or ache
Nausea
Please have a plan in place every morning for how you will pick up your child should you get a call. If neighbors or friends are your emergency contact, please make sure they will be available if you are not. We are expecting your student to be picked up ASAP and within 30 mins.
We are asking parents to be extra vigilant this year and not send your child to school with any of the above symptoms. Remember to screen (including temperature) every morning and fill out your Sunday evening screening survey.
We are discouraging the use of as needed meds as it could mask symptoms. It will depend on the circumstances surrounding the clinic visit. Please call to discuss this further if you have concerns.
If your child has seasonal allergies, please start medicating with a daily allergy medication now and consider a daily nasal spray. Developing a good routine now will help cut down on their symptoms later and will avoid me from having to send your child home unnecessarily.
Per CDC, AAP and TEA, nebulizer treatments for Asthmatics are not recommended. We are only accepting inhalers this year.
Please try to anticipate your child’s needs and send water bottles, lip balm, snacks and hygiene products. We are trying to keep the amount of students who visit the clinic to sick and urgent matters.
It is important to have a clean mask every day. Consider having multiple masks to be worn during the week to be laundered over the weekend. Paper masks can air dry in a brown paper bag over 2-3 days.
Please make sure your primary number is the one you want us to call first, should your child need to come home. Consider saving CMS number 817-949-5400 in your phone as a recognizable contact.
Parents if you still need to drop off emergency meds to the clinic like Epi pens and inhalers, there is a medication bin in the mantrap.
Thank you for your understanding and for your cooperation during these unprecedented times.
Important Message from Health Services
about Vaccinations
Please be advised that the Department of State Health Services has announced there will be no extensions to the required vaccinations for the 2020-2021 school year. Regardless of in person or virtual learning, all students must be compliant with proof of immunization or a current notarized exemption on file with your campus nurse. See full details, click here.
Information on Submitting Health information To your Student's Campus
It is recommended that, if possible, all documentation such as immunization records, action plans or doctors orders be sent contact-free via email or mail to your campus nurse. Contact your school nurse to arrange drop-offs for documents, medication or clinic supplies; this will be coordinated by the nurse with the exchange done in the front office. No parents or guardians will enter the school clinic.
Nurse Bonczyk is going paperless this year with immunizations, so please email her a copy of your students updated immunization records at your earliest convenience.
Susan Bonczyk, RN, BSN
