Area woman among those featured in photo essay honoring school nurses

May 24—SPRING VALLEY — For over two years now, our physicians, respiratory therapists, nurses and other health care workers have been heralded as heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic, with our hospitals serving as their battlegrounds — and rightfully so.

One organization, though, is trying to bring attention to the oft-forgotten medical workers scattered in every state, county and nearly every school district across the country: school nurses.

"Imagine what the COVID-19 pandemic would have looked like had we not had public health workers, acute care nurses, and physicians," the Wisconsin Association of School Nurses wrote on its website. "It is not difficult for us to imagine the chaos that could have ensued had these healthcare workers been absent because we understand the role they play in keeping our communities healthy and safe.

"Now imagine what the COVID-19 pandemic may have looked like if Wisconsin schools did not employ school nurses," the WASN continues. "Fewer of us may be able to visualize this scenario because we lack an understanding of what school nurses do or the knowledge that they even exist."

In recognition of National School Nurse Day on May 11, the WASN, under the guidance of Teresa DuChateau, launched "A Day in the Life: A Photo Essay of the Wisconsin School Nurses and the COVID-19 Pandemic," a digital project intended to tell the stories of local school nurses through words and pictures.

"We hope to provide the public with a better understanding of the physical and emotional toll the pandemic has had on school nurses," the project description states. "The goal of this project is to acknowledge and honor the role that school nurses played, historically and during the COVID-19 pandemic, to support the health and education of students."

DuChateau, a member of the WASN for over 11 years, said she came up with the idea behind the photo essay while looking at historical photos taken of health professionals during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.

"I wondered what documentation we would be able to look back on, decades from now, that highlighted the role of school nurses during the COVID pandemic," DuChateau said. "The idea also came from a desire to honor school nurses."

For two years, DuChateau learned about the challenges that school nurses around the state were facing. Since many of the nurses she met were the only ones employed by their districts, DuChateau said, she found that many school nurses are working in relative isolation.

"They didn't have their health care colleagues to lean on for support like nurses working in health care settings," DuChateau added. "School nurses didn't have signs in their yards or in front of their schools indicating that a health care hero worked or lived there. I wanted them to feel as though their contributions were seen and their feelings and struggles were validated."

So, DuChateau went to work applying for grants to fund the project. She received almost $2,000 from Wisconsin Humanities to cover travel costs and mentoring by a professional photographer. In total, DuChateau spent five months applying for grants, traveling to different school districts, interviewing school nurses and taking photos.

Ultimately, DuChateau said her goal with the "A Day in the Life" photo essay is to spark people's curiosity about the work that Wisconsin school nurses do. It may come as a surprise to some people, she said, that there is not a school nurse in every district. By showing the public what school nurses do and how much more they could do with adequate resources, it is DuChateau's hope that more people will advocate that their child have access to a school nurse in every school building, every day.

"School nurses are such a vital part of the larger healthcare system and provide an important connection between the student, the parent and the student's healthcare provider," DuChateau said. "Not only do school nurses provide care coordination for kids with chronic health conditions, they ensure that schools have the necessary infrastructure, including staff education and training, to respond to any urgent student health needs, including health emergencies."

Featured in the photo essay is Jenny Sauve, school nurse for the Spring Valley school district. Along with eight other school nurses from around the state, Sauve was shadowed for a day as young patients filtered in and out of her office, seeking her care, comfort and expertise.

A registered nurse of 13 years, Sauve has been with the Spring Valley school district for the past four years. According to the project, Sauve works part-time for the district, averaging 16 to 20 hours per week and serving just over 700 students at the elementary, middle and high school levels. She also supervises a full-time health aide, a part-time health aide and three secretaries who assist with providing health services when Sauve is not present.

When Sauve, also a member of the WASN, received an email outlining the scope of the project, she knew she wanted to be a part of it.

"I'm really proud of the photo essay." Sauve told the Leader-Telegram. "I hope that people maybe get a glimpse into how difficult (the pandemic) was for school nurses and all of the work that was unseen that was done. I really hope, more than that, that it just sheds a light on school nursing in general."

Sauve said the pandemic had major impacts on her work. For the first two years, Sauve estimated that around 90% of her time was consumed by COVID-19. Her responsibilities included contact tracing, coordinating with families about quarantining, working with Pierce County public health officials and implementing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

According to Sauve, the Spring Valley district saw around 80 cases of COVID-19 during the 2020-2021 school year. That number more than doubled this past school year.

"I remember, when the pandemic first started in our area, feeling a lot of guilt that I was not helping in the hospitals," Sauve said. "Now, as I reflect back on that, I think one of the unique things about school nursing is you're the only health care professional in the entire building. The staff and students and families were looking to me for guidance and just help with navigating the guidance coming from the CDC, or the county ... I was kind of the middle man, I guess, of trying to figure out what was being asked of schools and how we could actually implement that in our district."

At times, Sauve said, the work could feel a bit isolating. While nurses in hospitals have entire teams to work with, school nursing tends to fall on only a few sets of shoulders. She said it was her coordination with surrounding districts that got her through the past two years.

Jamie Trzebiatowski, President-elect of the WASN, said the "A Day in the Life" photo essay was a unique first for the organization, but she hopes to see similar initiatives in the future.

"As nurses we aren't always good at telling our stories," Trzebiatowski said. "We're really used to fading in the background and just doing our job and keeping our noses down. We don't really appreciate, typically, the attention or recognition. But I think, in order for people to really understand what we do and what role we play in health care and how important we are to patients, families and communities and their health, I think we have to keep putting some effort into telling our stories so that people understand."