NASN BOARD OF DIRECTORS REPORT
JULY 2008
This Board Meeting took place in Albuquerque New Mexico to coordinate with the
Annual Conference. My role as a Director involves attending the Board meetings twice
a year, working on Task Forces (TF) at each meeting and to serve on other committees
as assigned by the President. I also serve on the Endowment Committee and the Research
and Grants Committee.
The Task Forces are designed to allow face-to-face meetings by directors and staff to
work on specific projects that meet the strategic plan of NASN. These Task Forces are
designed to allow the work to be completed within a short period of time as new Task Forces
are assigned twice a year. The Endowment and Research and Grants committees are ongoing.
The Endowment Fund committee works throughout the year by conference calls and emails to
orchestrate the annual Endowment Fund dinner as well as other fund raising activities. The
Research and Grants Committee reviews all applications for funding submitted by NASN members
who wish to conduct research for evidence based practice.
The Task Forces that I served on this year were “Talking Points for School Boards
and Other Policy Makers” and “Legislative Initiatives”. The President works with the NASN
Executive Director to determine sixteen Task Force topics and we are allowed to select the two
that we would like to work on. As you can see my choices involve topics that we as OSNA are
currently involved in.
The outcome of Talking Points TF is that NASN will work with another organization, most likely
the NEA to update NASN’s DVD entitled “You Can’t Afford Not To Have a School Nurse”. The current
DVD is dated and the TF members provided suggestions to insure that the acuity of the health needs
in schools and the vast role of a professional school nurse are identified. We agreed to maintain
the Talking Points already in place which you can find on the NASN website. The titles are Talking
points for Healthy People 2010 Regional Meetings and School Nurse Advocacy Talking Points. The
latter being a compilation of specific points from current Issue Briefs and Position Statements.
The Legislative TF involved training nurses in legislative advocacy. This TF was developed and
led by Kathy Briggs the Director from Utah. Kathy had attended the Nurse in Washington Internship
(NIWI) training and found it to be lacking in information specific to school nursing. Kathy noted
that at the end of the 3day conference she had no more knowledge that she had already received
through NASN. The cost of NIWI is $4-5,000 and she felt that the money could be better spent in
developing a similar training specific to school nursing. The TF voted to have NASN staff, headed
by Mary Louise Embrey, develop a program that will train school nurses to become better advocates.
The training would be presented in a Train the Trainer format. This would be done as the Leadership
training already in place for Directors at the January meetings. Each year new directors would
receive the initial training and the experienced Directors would receive updated information.
The Directors would then bring the training back to his/her state and train local members. The
TF also requested that a survey be developed to determine data collection on evidence-based
practices. The survey would go to state affiliate leaders to report on state data collection.
The survey would be used to determine what data is collected, who collects it and who is the
data submitted to?
The Board of Directors meeting was an all day affair with seventeen additional agenda items
being brought forth by the Task Forces. The BOD passed the recommendations from the TF regarding
the Talking Points and the Executive Committee will now determine costs and feasibility. The
Legislative training TF turned into four motions. The first was to dedicate the January Leadership
day to the legislative training. The BOD did not want to completely rule out other leadership
activities so the motion was amended to state that leadership day “may include” the advocacy
training. The second motion to change the Policy that NASN send a staff person and a member
to NIWI was defeated. A third motion changing the requirement to say that NASN “may send” these
people was passed. The fourth motion to create a mechanism for states to collect data was passed.
The 2008-2009 Strategic Plan and Budget were adopted. Amy Garcia, the Executive Director gave her
Staff Report and I will give you a few of the highlights:
Finances;
Amy and Chris Cephas our CFO work very hard to make sure that our financial
status is transparent to the Board. NASN has three major sources of income- membership, services
(meetings, publications) and external funding for programs. Each of these provides approximately
one third of NASN’s revenue.
The fiscal year is changing and the Board has adopted this change. The fiscal year will be
changed from 9/1 to 8/31 to 4/1 to 3/31 beginning in January 2009. This change will allow the
heavy costs of the annual conference occur in the first quarter rather than the last.
Membership;
The software for the membership has been an ongoing problem. NASN
purchased a program from ARC Solutions that for the past year has been unable to deliver a system
that works for us. NASN is looking into legal action to recoup the $70,000 down payment o n this
system. Now we have purchased an Association Management Software system that when complete will
maintain 53 separate databases (Each state affiliate maintains different membership information),
facilitate meeting registration, online CE, book sales, membership renewals and more.
NASN has leased equipment that will issue your membership cards on the day that payment is received.
Currently membership cards are mailed in bulk from a printing office in Colorado that causes 2-3
week delays.
A new system is in place to remind members of upcoming renewal via postcards.
Continuing Education Programs; NASN plans to add on new on line CE per month. This month the new
ones are Prescription Drug Abuse and also Meningitis.
I am very proud of my association with NASN and PriCara, a Division of Ortho-McNeil-Janssen
Pharmaceuticals on this program. I am one of the authors of the JOSN supplement that came to
you in June. NASN asked me to be the voice of school nurses in this project. This project
involves the JOSN supplement, the Tool kit which gives you all that you need to provided this
information to students, parents, staff, administrators and lawmakers, and the break pout session
that Mary Louise Embrey and I presented at the Annual conference. I am continually amazed at the
scope of this problem and hope that these tools will of help to you in your practice.
Our project in conjunction with Smart Moves, Smart Choices has been the one program most
recognized by the media, government agencies including the White House.
Dr. Martha Dewey Bergen has been hired as Research Director for NASN.
Sage Publishing will now publish both the NASN Newsletter and the Journal of School Nursing.
Sage publishes multiple journals and because of our affiliation we will soon be able to access
all of their publications on line. We will have access to complete articles not just the abstracts.
NASN continues to partner with external organizations and reminds us to partner with these same
organizations at the state levels as well. Some of our partners include the CDC, NEA, Partnership
for A Drug Free America, National Epilepsy Foundation, American academy of Pediatrics,
American Diabetes Association, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, National PTA, National
School Board Association, National Association of School Administrators, National Association of
School Psychologists and many, many more. These contacts will be invaluable to us as we work to
educate legislators on the health needs of our students.
Jane Tustin, Past President of NASN and current leader of the National Board for Certification of
School Nurses reports that NCSN has met or exceeded the testing and renewal standards of the American
Board of Nursing Specialties (ABNS) and those of us that are NCSN certified are now members of the
specialty practice of School Nursing.
There are 2750 school nurses who have successfully completed the NCSN accreditation process. In
Oregon we have nationally and how many state. I have copied the direct information from the ABNS
below:
What does ABNS accreditation mean for those interested in becoming NCSN® certified of for those
already certified? It means that a nationally recognized accrediting body has determined that
the NCSN® credential is based on a valid and reliable testing process and that the structures in
place to administer the examinations meet and even exceed the standards of certification industry
from a legal, regulatory and association management perspective.
HR 6201 is an exciting new piece of legislation that has gone to committee on the House of
Representatives side of Congress. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy is seeking a sister Bill on the senate
side. Here is the beginning portion of the Bill: “HR 6201 To amend the Public Health Services Act
to authorize the secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to eligible states for the
purpose of reducing the student-to-school nurse ratio in public secondary schools, elementary
schools and kindergarten. This Act may be cited as the School Nurse Ratio Improvement Act of
2008.” Go to NASN for the complete Bill.
Lastly the Endowment Evening was a huge success. We raised over $25,000, which exceeded our
goal. We had a fiesta at the Hot Air Balloon Museum and the evening was great fun. I auctioned
off my skirt and raised $740 with some help from a very good- natured gentleman. The story is
long but we had a great time and raised a lot of money for the Endowment Fund.
Next year we will be in Boston and I hope that all of you will consider making the trip. The
conference is a wonderful way to learn, network and empower you as a professional school nurse.
Respectfully Submitted By
Paula Apa-Hall, RN, BSN, MEd, NCSN