President’s Message 2005-2006 has been an extremely busy and productive year for school nursing and your OASN Board of Directors and President. I want to express my sincere thanks to all of our membership and Board of Directors for your commitment, support, and hard work this past year. It has been an honor to represent OASN as your President this year. I have learned a great deal and feel that I can continue to be of service to our professional organization as we progress toward improving school nursing services to all students of Ohio.

The following are areas of activity this year that I hope will continue into the 2006-2007 term:

OASN will plan to exhibit our OASN display and the newly developed pamphlets at the Ohio State Fair. Any members interested in helping to man the booth should contact our Executive Director.

OASN communicated effectively with the Ohio Department of Education regarding our concerns surrounding ODE licensure and safe delivery of school nursing services throughout the state. We will continue these conversations into the coming year and hope to collect additional data to support our concerns.

The 2005 Scope and Standards for School Nursing have been published and establish a new set of standards, which curriculums must incorporate. OASN will assist ODE in writing criteria and training faculty for the presentation of the new standards.

OASN will work closely with Sam Whitaker, our newly hired legislative consultant, to continue to investigate options for funding to improve school nursing services throughout the state.

OASN will follow-up our request to amend the current Operating Standards for Primary and Secondary Schools in Ohio and to make available the services of a licensed school nurse to all students of Ohio.

OASN will continue to work with Senator Schuring to establish safe delivery of emergency medication for anaphylaxis in the school setting. We will meet with other legislators that have expressed interest in improving school health services or improvements to the school health environment.

We will continue to promote our new OASN Education and Scholarship Foundation. We will soon reach a financial level that will allow us to earn interest on our funds and hopefully expand our offerings.

The old Guide to School Nursing is currently under revision and we hope to have the new version available for the coming school year.

The OASN Webmaster, Juliet Kolde will continue to improve our Web Site and allow speedy communications and exchange of ideas.

Once again, I thank you all for the opportunity to serve as your President and I ask that each of you consider increasing your participation at your regional or state level. I will continue to do all that I can to improve school nursing services to the students in our state.

Sincerely,

Gail Pohlman, RN, BSN, MEd.

OASN President 2005-2006

The 33rd Annual OASN Conference is in the books and planning has started for next year’s conference. As chair for the conference planning, I would like to express heartfelt thanks to all who stepped up to help. I did forget to give COASN recognition at the banquet for the notepads donated to all attendees, thank you!.

Overall, the evaluations have been very positive as well as several constructive comments and suggestions for next year. The “baked potato and soup” buffet was a big hit as well as the vegetables and cheese snack on Friday.

We had 35 Exhibitors which greatly helps off set the costs of having this conference. Dairy Council Mid- East paid for the Friday afternoon snack, School Health paid for the Friday morning snack and Good- Lite Company contributed towards Saturday morning snack. Sadly, at the moment, Novartis has had a miscommunication and have not contributed to the Friday lunch as was mentioned in the program.

Thanks to all of you who booked hotel rooms as we met our minimum and kept the room rental fees to a minimum. With 200 school nurses attending, and the above mentioned donators and exhibitors, the preliminary results indicate that we were able to break even on the conference.

Next year’s conference will be at the same location, Embassy Suites Hotel Dublin. Save March 16th, 17th and 18th, 2007 for next year’s annual conference.

Again, a big thank you to all who helped to plan this conference, stuffed packets, greeted conference attendees at the registration table, chair committees, and for donated items.

Debra Stoner
Vice-President OASN 2005-06

The Pat Baum Scholarship annual 50-50 Raffle was another success this year. The total collected was a record $688.00 That means that the lucky winner, Betty Giammar, Central, took home $344.00 Enjoy Betty! Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Remember that the $500.00 scholarship is available to OASN members who are involved in an educational pursuit to advance the practice of school nursing. Applications are available on the OASN website. The deadline for applying is August 1, 2006.

If you have questions, contact Linda Miller.

SE had their Spring Meeting on April 7, 2006. Out of our 12 counties there were 8 counties represented, with 2 people visiting from different counties. We had approx. 25 members attending, and several others guests present. New SE membership forms and cards were distributed as well as OASN membership information. The tobacco survey was distributed and all who completed the surveys had them forwarded to Renee Besecker, OASN Executive Director.

Our meeting was held at Ohio University in Athens from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm. Ohio University’s - Diabetes and Endocrine Center, their Area Health Education Center and Consortium for Health Education in Appalachia Ohio and Ohio Department of Health were co-sponsors of our in-service/meeting entitled “Diabetes Care and the School Nurse”. Very valuable information was discussed, useful resources were given, and new products demonstrated. Nurses were awarded 5.8 contact hours which includes 1.2 contact hours for the required Law and Rules regulations.

Elections of Officers were completed with no new nominations. It was voted to retain the same officers, they are:

Lesa Slack, President (Lawrence County)
Tammy Lorbach, Vice President (Jackson County)
Kim Skidmore, Secretary (Gallia County)
Becky Gilpen, Treasurer (Lawrence County)
Gail Pohlman, State -Past Pres. (Gallia County)
Annette Scott, SE Rep. (Lawrence County)
Lori Moore – Nominating Committee (Jackson County)

Lunch was provided and we had our SE meeting. We discussed: SE voted to donate $50.00 towards the basket for the National (NASN) Conference in New York City in June. Money is to be turned in at the OASN Board meeting on May 6, 2006 by Annette Scott. Other issues discussed were the Endowment Fund, the ODH Survey, and the need for School Nurses to speak up for themselves and be more Legislative savvy. It was agreed upon by nurses present at the meeting, that a petition/letter would be drafted and signed by SE nurses. It would then be forwarded to our legislators requesting their support for the need for mandatory school nurses. Once a copy of the letter is forwarded to me, I will send a copy to everyone.

OASN Conference was held on March 30th – April 2nd. Gail Pohlman, of Gallia County Schools, just finished her year as State President. Gail was honored at the banquet. She was unable to come to the SEOASN meeting held on April 7, 2006, but she will receive a small token of love from SEOASN. We were represented at the conference by 3 members, Gail, Tammy Lorbach and Annette Scott. Even though we were small in numbers, we made up for it in what we have and had to offer to the association. Pins and a separate raffle were sold at the conference and we made $150.00 It was the best conference I have went to so far. The accommodations, speakers, food, and overall experience were very good. Hopefully we can be represented with more members in the future. We represented with the Puzzle Pins that were donated to the conference packets. Each pin was made by students of Ironton High School. The students were given a Pizza Party for their efforts. Additional pins were sold at the conference and at the Spring SEOASN meeting. 75 pins were purchased and prepared for our NASN Rep Aurelia Barney to take to her NASN Conference/Meeting.

FOR ALL - PLEASE RESPOND: SE is doing an unofficial survey on the need for Sub- School Nurses. If you have any thoughts, concerns, or answers to some of these questions, please respond back to Annette Scott at southeastrep@oasn.org . Here are some things for thought. Do you have sub school nurse(s)? What are their job qualifications, ie.. can they be a LPN, RN, nurse aide, AGENCY NURSE, RETIRED etc?, Do they have to be a school nurse?, How are they trained to your specific students or know what to do in your buildings?, How do you start a sub list for a certain area (neighboring school districts can share)?, Are there state regs that govern sub nurses?, Can we start a list after these issues are addressed?, How will the list be kept up, updated, reviewed, evaluated, governed? This subject is so broad and too big for me to comprehend, but so many are asking about subs and no one is addressing it. What are your thoughts, do you have other questions, concerns, or answers? I’m looking forward to hearing from all.

Annette Scott – SE Rep.

COASN held its annual spring meeting on May 3rd at Schmidt’s in German Village (Columbus). Our speaker was Barb Bradley, RN, MS, CIC, Chief, Bureau of Infectious Disease Control, Ohio Department of Health. Barb addressed “Bird Flu and pandemics”. We had 60 members registered for the program. All enjoyed a great speaker, good food, and fellowship. New officers were inducted at this meeting the new executive board is as follows:

• President – Kate King
• President-Elect – Lisa Kauffman
• Vice President - MaryLee Rippl
• Past President – Sue Casto
• Secretary – Amy Vereb
• Treasurer – Laurie Tufts
• OASN Representative – Joan Keith

We also have many committee chairmen returning and expect a strong and active year. If you have not joined or gotten involved in the past, now is the time! Join a committee, plan some of the fun and education!

We would like to remind our friends in other regions to check out our web site at www.coasn.org if you plan to be in town during the school year, and welcome you to attend one of our meetings.

Respectfully submitted,
Deborah L. Strouse, COASN Rep

The Northwest Ohio Association of School Nurses is having their next meeting on Wednesday May 10th at St. Luke’s hospital. There will be an educational offering “Ocular Emergencies. CEU’s have been applied for. Registration is scheduled for 5-5:15 Dinner from 5:15 to 5:45. Following the program, we will have installation of officers for the 2006-2007 school Year.

The new slate of officers for the coming year includes:

• Candi Hendershot - President
• Laurie Gladieux - President- Elect
• Kate Malone - Past President
• Martie Moline - Treasurer
• Sara Velasquez - Secretary
• Maureen Knowles - NW Rep to OASN
• Mary Beth Durbin - Newsletter
• Ann Cipriani - Membership Chairperson

We wish to extend to Kathy Inderbitzin our sincere congratulations and best wishes for her year as the OASN President. Jan Florian was elected to the position of Secretary for OASN and will be installed on May 6th at the OASN Board meeting in Columbus. We wish Jan great success in her new position.

NWOASN had 26 voting members at the Annual convention in Columbus. Everyone enjoyed the conference and commented on how well organized it was.

Respectfully submitted, Maureen Knowles, NW Rep

The last SWOSNA meeting for this school year was held @ the Heatherwoode Golf Club on Apr. 25, 2006. After a brief business meeting in which outgoing officers Lauren Brown & Kathy O'Dell were recognized, Lauren installed our new officers: Judy Marrinan as President-elect. Joan Hlinomaz will be installed as OASN Rep. at the transition board meeting on May 16.

Lovetta Blanke was presented with roses for her service to SWOSNA in sustaining the Cameos of Caring award.

This year's recipient of Cameos of Caring is Linda Hilvert who has not only given many years of service to her school system but also to SWOSNA & to OASN. SWOSNA congratulates Linda! Linda will be recognized at this gala event at Wright State University in October.

The SWOSNA board will take an official vote at the transition meeting to make a contribution to the OASN Endowment Fund.

A contribution for the OASN basket for the raffle at NASN will be forth-coming.

The Martha Carrick Scholarship Award recipient for 2006 is Lisa Parks who will be applying this award to her tuition costs @ Xavier University to pursue a dual masters degree....MSN/MEd. Contratulations to Lisa!

SWOSNA closes the year with 173 members. There were nearly 50 SWOSNA nurses @ the OASN conference in late Mar./early April in Columbus. A nomination for School Nurse of the Year will be forth-coming from SWOSNA.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathy O'Dell

OASN Rep.

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