School Nurses Battle Covid-19, and Angry Parents, feel overwhelmed, iverworked and under attack

When a junior high school student in western Oregon tested positive for the coronavirus last month, Sherry McIntyre, a school nurse, quarantined two dozen of the student’s football teammates. The players had spent time together in the locker room unmasked, and, according to local guidelines, they could not return to school for at least 10 days.

Some parents took the news poorly. They told Ms. McIntyre that she should lose her nursing license or accused her of violating their children’s educational rights. Another nurse in the district faced similar ire when she quarantined the volleyball team. This fall, after facing repeated hostility from parents, they started locking their office doors.

“They call us and tell us we’re ruining their children’s athletic career,” Ms. McIntyre said. “They see us as the enemy.”

Throughout the pandemic, schools have been flash points, the source of heated debates over the threat the virus poses and the best way to combat it. School nurses are on the front lines. They play a crucial role in keeping schools open and students safe but have found themselves under fire for enforcing public health rules that they did not make and cannot change. ...

Nurses say they are juggling more Covid cases and quarantines — and more furious parents — than ever. “I call myself a fireman and a dentist, because I feel like I’m putting out fires and pulling teeth all day long,” said Holly Giovi, a school nurse in Deer Park, N.Y.

They are, they say, exhausted and overwhelmed. Some say that, for the first time, they hate their jobs, while others are quitting, exacerbating a school nursing shortage that predated the pandemic.

“I loved being a school nurse before Covid,” Ms. McIntyre said. Last month, she resigned.

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