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Article: School nurses can be critical to children's care; funding in question.
- Article from:
- The Mississippi Business Journal
- Article date:
- September 11, 2006
- Author:
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Political wrangling has thwarted plans to expand the patchwork-funded school nurse program in Mississippi to an acceptable level. For now, Mississippi has one school nurse per 1,500 students, including special needs children mainstreamed into the public school system mandated by 1975 federal legislation.
The Legislature doesn't fund the state's 330 school nurses serving 499,000 children in education appropriation bills, which Gov. Haley Barbour has said should be done. The Bower Foundation appropriates some funds specifically for school nurses. The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi payrolls annually $2.5 million for "tobacco nurses" in 52 districts. That fund ...