Sudden Cardiac Arrest is the leading cause of death on school campuses and No. 1 killer of student athletes. School nurses are on the front lines of student health and are critical to a school’s readiness to respond to a cardiac emergency. Parent Heart Watch and NASN support making schools heart safe. Get Charged Up! is a program that promotes cardiac preparedness through the proper installation of AEDs and implementation of Cardiac Emergency Response Plans. School nurses can apply by February 28, 2020 to earn a free AED for their school by participating in Get Charged Up!

NASN and school nurses have been widely represented in the news media over the past few months and we are now including a section in the Weekly Digest to highlight some of those stories twice a month. If you have a story about school nurses you'd like us to consider including, please send it to us.

School nurses are invited to participate in a 15-minute survey to help understand common approaches to school improvement efforts. Healthier Generation, with support from Kaiser Permanente, will use the survey responses to build a user-centric, comprehensive assessment tool to support schools and districts in improving the environments, policies, and practices to improve the health and well-being of students and staff.

Too many kids and teens have hypertension and other risk factors for heart disease and stroke. Using the updated 2017 American Academy of Pediatrics' Clinical Practice Guideline, a CDC study shows that about 1 in 25 youth ages 12 to 19 have hypertension, and 1 in 10 has hypertension (previously called “prehypertension”). High blood pressure is more common in youth with obesity. Share these resources with your school community to help make families more aware of this problem during American Heart Month.

The new report, Using Chronic Absence to Map Interrupted Schooling, Instructional Loss and Equity Implications: Insights from School Year 2017-18 Data, from Attendance Works and the Everyone Graduates Center, offers critical insights into which student groups, schools and districts are likely to need additional support to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report builds on the new national chronic absence data, released in October 2020, from the U.S. Department of Education’s EDFacts initiative. The authors lay out key recommendations school districts and states can take to turn around low attendance during the pandemic. An updated interactive map, produced by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, makes it easy to see the districts and schools most affected by chronic absence.

Check out this new resource from the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors: Promoting Good Nutrition and Healthy Eating in Schools: An Important Strategy for Promoting Oral Health and Preventing Dental Caries.

On this webinar, Dr. Natalia I. Chalmers, D.D.S., M.H.Sc., Ph.D., a pediatric dentist and Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry, who serves as Dental Officer within the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will share trends in oral health services among those enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP and how early intervention can promote oral health outcomes among children.

Student mental wellness is critically important to everyone in a school community. NASN Executive Director Donna Mazyck, MS, RN, NCSN, CAE, FNASN, will offer the school nurse perspective at the NCSSS Student Mental Wellness Virtual Summit 2021 on the panel, It Takes a Village. Subscribers to the NASN Weekly Digest can attend the conference for a reduced rate of $99 by using code SMHS20 when you register.

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