New School Nurses: 4 Year Plan

Supporting Delaware’s newest educators is essential to ensuring all of Delaware’s students receive a quality education and are college and/or career ready. By providing comprehensive support to our newest educators, the Delaware Department of Education, school districts, and charter schools can work together towards increasing educator retention rates; improving professional practices of both new and veteran educators, and most importantly, having positive effects on student achievement.

The purpose of the Comprehensive Induction Program is to provide new educators with the support necessary to become familiar with school and district policies, hone their professional skills, help them evaluate and reflect on their own professional performance and develop an individualized growth plan to improve their effectiveness.

Delaware provides a four (4) year mentoring and induction process for educators new to the profession, including School Nurses. The Comprehensive Induction Program for New School Nurses  strives to meet the following goals:

1. Provide the new nurse with a Mentor. The Mentor helps the new staff member become familiar with school, district, and state resources, procedures, and policies.
2. Assure a seamless alignment between the components of the Delaware Professional Appraisal System II (DPAS II) and the Comprehensive Induction Program.
3. Build reflective practitioners who are able to review their present level of professional performance and use that data to set goals for future professional development.

Years 1 and 2 focus on developing school nursing practice, Years 3 and 4 focus on leadership, outreach, and advocacy

Year One

• Introduction and district orientation
• Required trainings
• Orientation checklist
• 4 observations. Observations by mentor to include:
• 2 observations followed by discussions
• 2 screening observations (hearing and vision, postural and BMI)
• Observation of another school nurse. Observations can be broken down into 4 quarter-day or 2 half-day sessions to equal one full day.
• Required professional development. Within online certification courses - mandatory to complete medication and treatments parts 1 to 4.
• End of year survey
• Verification forms
• Resources form

Year Two

• Self - assessment (form on Schoology)
• Revisit orientation checklists
• Focus discussions on supporting goal creation within DPAS system
• 4 observations. Observations by mentor to include:
• Self-assessment review
• IEP/504
• Health education
• Office management
• 2 focused observations of another nurse (length 1/4 day)
• Professional learning experience - attendance at DSNA conference and leadership experience
• Prepare 5 year plan
• Verification forms

Year Three

• Revisit self- assessment
• Participation in Book Review (Scope and Standards/Ethics)
• Review and update 5 year professional growth plan

Year Four

• Post reflections
• Leadership role project utilizing framework (Access library on Schoology).
• Review of leadership and advocacy PowerPoints. Suggestions for presenting project: staff, district nurses, administration, school board, PTA, student nurses, local nursing conference.
• Review and update 5 year plan

Contacts

Tiffany Green
Education Associate
Educator Inducation
tiffany.green@doe.k12.de.us
302.735.4131

Site Coordinator Contact List