Educating School Nurses: Returning to School During the COVID-19 Pandemic

As schools began reopening, following government mandated school closure early on during the COVID-19 pandemic, new safety measures and protocols were put in place to keep students and staff safe. School nurses have become essential to ensuring schools reopen safely. However, as school nurses were forced to adapt to their increasing roles and responsibilities, a method for providing continuing education to school nurses within an East Tennessee school district did not exist. The goal of this evidence-based practice project was to provide continuing education to school nurses on COVID-19 return to school guidelines via an e-learning modality. Larrabee’s Model for Evidence-Based Practice Change was used to guide this project. An e-learning module was distributed via email to each school nurse within the school district; participants were asked to complete a pretest and posttest survey before and after the educational module. Comparison of the pretest and posttest questionnaire revealed a significant increase in learner score (p =