School Nurse

They have the thinnest skin, the shortest fuses and take the hardest knocks. In psychiatrists' offices, they have long been viewed as among the most challenging patients to treat. They are the kind of people who drive a friend away for interfering and subsequently berate that friend for abandonment. But almost 20 years after the designation of borderline personality disorder as a recognized mental health condition, some understanding and hope have surfaced for people with the condition and their families.

L.A. Unified teachers and administrators this week expressed wildly differing views of a classroom breakfast program intended to ensure that students don't start the day hungry. United Teachers Los Angeles gave the program a "failing grade" Monday as it released results from an online survey that said the effort had increased pests, created messes and cut down on instructional time. But David Binkle, the district's food services director, on Tuesday said that the program - which serves 193,000 students in 280 schools - was a "smashing success.

Sandra G. Henry was named the Orange County School Nurse of the Year by her peers Wednesday at a dinner celebrating National School Health Week. Henry, an Irvine Unified School District nurse, was selected by the Orange County School Nurses Organization for "being the epitome of our profession," said school nurse Norma Yockel, who nominated Henry.

Sounds strange, I know. But I hope you never have reason to meet Dr. Noah Federman, who makes his living saving children's lives. Extraordinary guy. Take all the athletes I've met in more than 40 years and this is my hero, even though he has to admit, "Some see me coming and it's a visceral reaction; they put their heads in a trash can and throw up. "I'm not that ugly," he protests, and we argue for the next 10 minutes. I wear a hat with the name of the place where he works to every game as a reminder to athletes how lucky they have it. Most just look at it as a hat. It might be five years since I last saw Federman.

The Simi Valley City Council has approved a request by the school district to use $27,400 in federal grant money to subsidize the salary of a nurse for four elementary schools. The council unanimously approved the request at its meeting Monday night. The school district is pitching in $30,000 more to help pay for the visiting nurse program, which will serve Santa Susana, Berylwood, Katherine and Park View elementary schools, Assistant Supt. Susan Parks said.

A high school nurse who seduced a 17-year-old student with an attention deficit disorder has been sentenced to three years probation at the West Los Angeles Municipal Court. Janet Mukai, 43, pleaded no contest in February to one count of having unlawful sex with a minor. The parents of the teenager, who attended Alexander Hamilton High School, found out about the affair when the boy left a love letter from the nurse in the pocket of a jacket that he borrowed from his brother.

The health of children in San Diego city schools could suffer if the district approves a proposal to replace 50% of the professional school nurses with lesser-trained nurses and aides, medical officials have warned. The proposal, to be considered by the district board Tuesday, would save the district up to $900,000 a year by eliminating half the 112 registered nurses and replacing them with lesser-trained nurses and aides.

"One of the most common places you'll find choking victims is in restaurants," said Gloria Stipe. "Now, what's usually the first thing people do at a restaurant?" Her question was greeted with a few blank stares. "They'll have a drink," she said. "That has an effect on the throat, making it more susceptible to choking." Students were gathered in groups of seven or eight in the University City High School choral room, which had been transformed temporarily into a first-aid classroom.

The scrapes, bruises, even the high fevers are easy. It's the tracheotomies, malnutrition, chronic child abuse and post-traumatic stress cases that are tough. Here's a girl whose father beat her last night; here's a little boy whose teeth are falling out; here's a child with shrapnel from a Nicaraguan firefight still embedded in his back. If the last time you looked into the school nurse's office, you saw a nice lady handing out Band-Aids, look again.

Joan Banks recalls that when she left her school nursing job in Virginiaand moved to California three years ago, "I figured I was coming to Mecca. I thought California was probably on the cutting edge of everything." Instead, she found working conditions to be "the pits" at her new job with the Anaheim Union High School District. In Virginia, she was responsible for 345 students at a single school.

As the funeral processions unfolded this week across  Newtown, Conn., laying to rest the 26 victims of last week's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the massacre's often-uncounted 27th victim was quietly memorialized Thursday: Nancy Lanza, the killer's mother. An official source in New Hampshire confirmed that a private funeral had been held for Lanza, 52,  at an undisclosed location, attended only by her family. "It was private, family only. About 25 family members attended," said Donald W. Briggs Jr., police chief in Kingston, N.H.    PHOTOS:  Mourning after the massacre The service probably occurred near Kingston, where Lanza grew up, married her high school boyfriend and bore the couple's two sons before moving to Connecticut in 1998.

Treating skinned knees and stomachaches is part of the drill at any school nurse's office or school-based health center. But healthcare providers at these sites do much more than treat everyday aches and pains: They give checkups and vaccinations, make sure kids take their insulin shots and antidepressants on time, and teach them how to manage chronic conditions such as asthma. School-based health centers go beyond the services of a school nurse. They are clinics that provide primary care to students, and often mental health and dental care as well.

The most, and almost the only, surprising thing about "Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures," a new tweencom debuting Friday on Nickelodeon before taking up its regular Sunday post, is that the character called Skinner is the one you'd expect, given a certain emptiness of head, to be called Bucket. Nickelodeon has been in its time a place where marvelous, strange and poetic things have happened — yes, "The Adventures of Pete & Pete," I'm talking to you, but also to "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide" and "The Secret World of Alex Mack," the last of which was co-created by Thomas W. Lynch, who developed "Bucket & Skinner.

The 17-year-old boy who came into Cathy Owens' nursing office at Murrieta Valley High School in Riverside County was gasping for breath. He had no history of health problems. After quickly examining him, Owens' 35 years of experience kicked in. "He was not able to breathe, and there was no heart rate going," she recalls. "All I could think of was he was suffering from anaphylaxis. " Often the result of a severe food allergy, anaphylaxis can be lethal if not treated within minutes.

Adam Reitz could be a poster child for the "eat less, exercise more" campaign. He learned firsthand that shedding 100 pounds required both. Sounds simple, but it was anything but. In the past, Reitz's dad had confronted him about his obesity. But there was a pivotal moment that inspired him to act. This Allentown Morning Call story tells what happened: "It was three years ago and two months before his wedding. He had just returned from a trip to Hawaii with his students and colleagues from Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pa. The school nurse had taken the picture and left it in his mailbox for him to remember their trip.

Can you imagine one adult taking care of 2,100 children? In California, that is what we ask of our roughly 3,000 credentialed school nurses who serve the state's 6.3 million public schoolchildren, some of whom have debilitating physical conditions that demand specialized healthcare. Our students with epilepsy who may need Diastat administered during a seizure are only one of the examples. However, the controversy surrounding who should be allowed to administer the drug to students in an emergency — the subject of Steve Lopez's May 26 column, "Down the Capitol rabbit hole" — illustrates the crisis that our students and our schools face with respect to providing care to our most fragile children.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is considering a claim by the parents of a 17-year-old student who allegedly was seduced by a high school nurse treating his attention deficit disorder, officials said Wednesday. The Alexander Hamilton High School nurse, Janet Mukai, 43, is awaiting sentencing after pleading no contest Feb. 27 in West Los Angeles Municipal Court to one count of having unlawful sex with a minor.

Virginia Hayes sits in a sparsely decorated office, applying equal amounts of Band-Aids and TLC to the knee-scraped children who come through her door. On a busy day, one or two feverish children may rest on a cot until their parents arrive to take them home. A typical picture of today's school nurse? Not exactly. "People have the stereotyped image about school nurses being like a Band-Aid queen.

At least four red-haired girls and three boys are now believed to have been victims of the so-called ginger attacks at a Calabasas middle school that were inspired by a Facebook message, a Los Angeles County sheriff's investigation has revealed. The seven victims were targeted in a series of assaults at or near A.E. Wright Middle School that began early Friday after the perpetrators acted on a Facebook message stating that it was "Kick a Ginger Day," authorities said. Ginger is a label given to people with red hair, freckles and fair skin.

At least three youngsters in Calabasas have fallen victim to violence by fellow middle-school students after a Facebook group urged people to beat up redheads, authorities said Monday. The first reported incident occurred Friday morning when a 12-year-old redheaded boy was kicked and hit by a dozen of his classmates at A.E. Wright Middle School, Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators said. Detectives took reports of two more assaults, targeting a seventh-grader and an eighth-grader that day at the middle school, said Lt. Scott Chew.