Costs and Effects of School Nursing on Student Attendance and Absenteeism

• In Event: Topics in Contemporary Program Implementation, Evaluation, and Measurement

Abstract

We estimated the district-wide costs of providing nursing services to students in Southern Urban School District and, for a subset of elementary schools, investigated the costs of providing full-time school nurses and their impact on student attendance and absenteeism. We used optimal multi-level matching to create a matched set of 23 elementary schools each served by a full-time licensed practical nurse and 23 elementary schools with no full-time nurse. We found incremental costs averaging $102 per student or $43,200 per school to provide a full-time nurse. We found no significant effects on student attendance and absenteeism at the aggregate level and suggest a number of explanations as well as potential improvements to the nursing program.

Authors

• Laura Head, Self-employed

• Fiona M. Hollands, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Stephen M Leach, Jefferson County Public Schools

• Eva Stone, Jefferson County Public Schools

• Yixin Wang, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Robert Shand, American University

• Bo Yan, Jefferson County Public Schools

• Dena Dossett, Jefferson County Public Schools

• Florence Chang, Jefferson County Public Schools

• Yuan Chang, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Yilin Pan, Columbia University