Fresno Teachers Association member Barbara Miller has been named the School Nurse of the Year for 2002 by the California School Nurses Organization (CSNO).

One of Miller's first acts in her new role was to administer a healthy dose of reality about the importance school nurses play in educating children.

At the invitation of Assembly Member Sarah Reyes, Barbara Miller addresses the state Assembly after winning the title of School Nurse of the Year for California. Behind her are her husband, Dwight, and her mother, Bobbie Blain.

"To me, there is a huge link between academic success and school nursing," says Miller, who has been a nurse in the Fresno Unified School District for 13 years. "Kids have to be healthy at school in order to be successful academically, and school nurses play a big role in that."

School nurses, Miller says, have been misunderstood for a lot of years.

The biggest misconception is that school nurses mostly hand out Band-Aids and supervise an office where students can lie down. "What we really do is identify a lot of unknown illnesses," says Miller, a pediatric nurse practitioner who holds a master's degree in nursing. "There are a lot of kids who have heart defects, kids who are diabetic and undiagnosed, and kids with hearing and vision problems. It goes on and on. For these reasons, nurses are really valuable to schools."

Last year, a high school student fainted on campus, and Miller immediately detected a heart problem.

The student's parents took him to the hospital, where doctors informed them he was born with a heart condition called Wolf Parkinson-White syndrome. Surgery fixed the problem, and the student and his family credit Miller's diagnosis with saving his life.

Nurses, especially members of CSNO, are also activists, says Miller. "CSNO members get out there and talk to legislators, and review hundreds of bills to make sure they are appropriate and healthy for kids."

After 10 years of nursing at several different elementary school sites within her district, Miller was picked to be the first school nurse at Sunnyside High School, which offers the Doctor's Academy - an academically challenging program focused on professions in the health care field.

Along with seeing about 50 students a day for a variety of ailments, she teaches CPR to students and staff, and puts on a health fair every year, inviting numerous agencies with a focus on adolescent health to participate.

Before taking her position at Sunnyside High, Miller served as the interim coordinator for the School Nurse Services Credential Program at CSU-Fresno.

There she rallied the school's Health Program Advisory Committee to rescue the program, which was in danger of closing. In addition, she taught lecture and practicum courses for the university. "I believe in doing my part to encourage and mentor new school nurses," she says.

Miller, who enjoys research, conducted a national survey of school nurses in 1995.

She found that the age of the average school nurse is 47, which could mean mass retirements and a resulting shortage in the not-too-distant future.

Another finding was that the average ratio of students to nurses was 3,500 to 1, although the national average should be 750 to 1. "In some school districts, it was 1 nurse to every 10,000 kids," she notes.

Winning the award was a surprise, says Miller, who is working toward earning her administrative services credential. "I was really humbled. I work with fantastic nurses, and to be singled out as being one was extremely gratifying."

Sherry Posnick-Goodwin