Supporting Rural School Nursing in the United States

Rural school nursing is inherently different from suburban or urban school nursing. This article describes the processes involved in becoming a Special Interest Group and identifying the specific needs of rural school nurses. We developed an online group focused on rural school nursing, provided a network of school nurses who experience similar contexts for mutual support and learning, and identified priorities for scholarship in the setting of rural and frontier school nursing. Rural school nursing was defined; additionally, characteristics of rural school nurse practice and unique challenges in this setting were identified. Solution-focused discussions provided professional development for rural school nurses, prioritizing the issues that were the greatest challenges. Topics included resource mapping, orientation to the role, mentoring needs, and training unlicensed personnel in the context of limited resources. The online focus group has since become an official Special Interest Group of the National Associatoin of School Nurses.