One per 1,500.

That’s the nurse-to-student ratio for K-12 schools in Pennsylvania — one of a handful of states to set staffing requirements in the law.

Karla Coffman, a nurse in the York Suburban School District, is about 250 students away from reaching that threshold as the certified school nurse for the high school and one of the district’s elementary schools.

With nearly 3,000 students enrolled across six buildings, York Suburban, about 40 minutes from Harrisburg, employs three certified nurses, three full-time health assistants, a floating health assistant, and another who provides care to one student within the district.

So far, meeting those responsibilities hasn’t been an issue, and a nurse having to travel from one facility to another hasn’t meant life or death in York Suburban. But student health needs have changed since the Pennsylvania General Assembly wrote staffing requirements into the Public School Code nearly 60 years ago.

Though once appropriate for K-12 schools, the requirements are now “unrealistic,” Coffman said.

“You can not use those same standards in our world today,” Sherri Taylor, a nurse at Red Lion Area Senior High School, also in York County, told the Capital-Star. “The only care for a student that was diabetic was to keep that child home because we didn’t have finger sticks. We didn’t have insulin pumps. We didn’t have continuous glucose monitoring systems. A child with cancer didn’t come to school; a child with severe asthma wouldn’t have come to school.”

Now, kids with chronic health conditions can attend in-person instruction in a traditional school setting, and nurses are the first line of care, Taylor said.

“We see that kid every day,” she said, adding that school staff likely interact with kids more than primary care providers or specialists. “We know the norm. We know when something’s wrong or when something’s off.”

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that more than 40 percent of school-aged children in the United States have at least one chronic health condition — asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, obesity, and food allergies. Additionally, young people are experiencing the mental health effects tied to the COVID-19 pandemic after two years of mixed instruction and isolation.

Read the full article about school nurses by Marley Parish at The 74.