required services].) A school’s obligations to a particular diabetic student are normally set out in a “Section 504 plan” or an “individualized education program” (IEP). Approximately one in 400 school-age children nationwide has diabetes, including about 14,000 in California. The goal of diabetes management for children is to avoid both hyperglycemia (high blood glucose) and hypoglycemia (low blood glucose) by tightly maintaining blood glucose levels within target ranges determined by their physicians, through frequent monitoring and multiple daily insulin injections. (DHHS Guide, p. 15.) Accordingly, diabetic students who depend on insulin injections typically need them during the schoolday, both at regularly scheduled times and unpredictably to correct for fluctuations in blood glucose. The need for insulin can arise anytime and anywhere — in the classroom, on field trips or during school-sponsored activities. To serve this and other student health needs, California has about 2,800 school nurses, averaging one for every 2,200 of the state’s approximately 6 million public school students. While 5 percent of schools have a full-time school nurse, 69 percent have only a part-time nurse, and 26 percent have no nurse at all. Although some schools allow unlicensed school personnel to administer insulin, others do not. Some of those that do not appear to have taken the position, possibly in reliance on 2005 and 2006 advisory statements by the Department (see post, at p. 21 et seq.), that the Nursing Practice Act (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 2700 et seq.) permits only licensed health care providers to administer insulin in schools. Moreover, some nurses have refused to train unlicensed school personnel to administer insulin out of concern for possible disciplinary action by the Board of Registered Nursing. As a result, diabetic students have encountered difficulty in receiving insulin during the schoolday. In October 2005, the parents of four diabetic students in California public schools, together with the Association, filed a class action in federal court alleging that schools in the
Chapter 23 – Provision of Healthcare Services, Charter SELPA As of 09/08/2017 CAHELP Governance Council Approved
Page 27
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online