School nurses, at the front lines of the fight against the virus in classrooms this school year for districts that opted for in-person education, will face new challenges in the coming months.

In Grant County, Royal and Moses Lake are the only major public school districts that have opted for some degree of in-person learning to start the school year.

It will be a new experience for Royal School District’s sole nurse, Janna Benzel, whose institution, like those of other school nurses across the state, closed their doors in the spring when the pandemic began.

“It’s new for us,” Benzel said in an interview. “At this point, I don’t know what to expect. I know we’re preparing for it, but it will be interesting to see what happens when we have kids in classrooms.”

One experience will be particularly different this year: flu season. While school nurses often see a sharp uptick in students coming into their offices in the fall, most of those students would get sent back to their classrooms during a normal school year, Benzel said, typically because they didn’t have a fever.

But, in accordance with guidance from local health officials, students this year who show any symptoms of the coronavirus, many of which are typical symptoms of the flu, will instead be sent home, Benzel said. Those symptoms are also often seen in students who aren’t sick, Benzel said, whether they have allergies or a propensity for headaches — but since those are also symptoms of the coronavirus, those students will still be sent home, which Benzel worries could contribute to absenteeism.

Those students will have to remain home for 10 days from the onset of symptoms plus an additional 24 hours in which they don’t present any symptoms before they could return to school, Benzel said. If they choose to get a COVID-19 test, she added, they could potentially return to school earlier if their results are negative, while the timeline wouldn’t change for a positive test result.

There may also be challenges getting students to comply with wearing a face mask at all times, particularly younger or special needs students, Benzel said. Staff in those circumstances will have to be trained in how to wear additional personal protective equipment, including face shields or even possibly hospital gowns, she added.

This could potentially be unsettling for students, said Benzel, who has an elementary-age child in the Othello School District. For reasons including this, Benzel said that her child would have taken classes online anyway if that had been a choice, though that district opted early on to pursue all-online education.

In Royal district schools, there will also be the issue of ensuring that all students and staff have masks to begin with, Benzel added. Though people are encouraged to bring their own masks, a school is required by the state Department of Labor and Industries to provide them to anyone who doesn’t have one, she said. While the district received a shipment of masks ordered earlier in the summer, Benzel said that she wasn’t sure if the shipment would be sufficient — district administrators were not immediately available for comment.

Many of those challenges will not be unique to the Royal School District, but others will be. In addition to more routine duties, a licensed nurse is needed in order to administer certain emergency medications, such as seizure medications or medications for students with feeding tubes. In case she gets sick and can’t return to work, Benzel said, she has asked district officials to hire an additional licensed nurse.

Several school nurses from the Moses Lake School District had initially agreed to similar interviews, but one later declined to speak on the district’s plan and the rest relayed messages from the school district saying they were not able to speak directly with the press. District communications staff stated they would not be able to facilitate an interview with nurses and did not clarify their position before press deadline.

However, the district said in a statement that the Health Services Department collectively wanted to state that they would work to protect the safety of the community.

“We support the recommendations of the DOH and our health officer, but we are here to support the safety of our students and families in their decision on a safe return to learning in person,” the statement said.

In addition, a statement from Superintendent Josh Meek asked the community to wear masks “to help stop the spread of this virus.”

According to information recently released by the district, Moses Lake students will be subject to similar rules as in Royal City if they are symptomatic and need to quarantine.