GEORGIA – A year ago, the two nurses at the biggest high school in Georgia saw about 100 students a day, dispensing prescriptions, giving out feminine hygiene products, applying bandages, checking blood sugar levels and occasionally calling 911.
“This year, it is not that way,” Candy Fleming, one of two nurses at Mill Creek High School in Gwinnett County,said recently. “We are doing COVID-19 tracing pretty much all day long.”
Fleming is among more than 1,000 other school nurses in Georgia thrust onto the front lines this year as the public face of schools’ responses to the pandemic. They are taking on new leadership roles, helping districts strategize for pandemic safety and educating parents and staff about COVID-19.
