I am excited to begin my term (2020) as President of NBCSN. In my final year of my six years on this board, I am thrilled to be working with nine of the most outstanding leaders in school nursing, as well as our new public member, an experienced special education and school attorney. While I am sad to say goodbye to Sandi Delack, Amy Quesinberry, and Cyndy Gilcrest, we welcome, in addition to Michelle Laubin, Esq, Cindy Hiltz, a school nursing administrator from Minnesota; and Robin Shannon, a nursing educator in Chicago, as well one of the editors of the 2nd edition of School Nursing: A comprehensive text.
We have a full year ahead of us!
- We are in the process of working out the details for a vitally needed new exam review book.
- We continue to focus on the validity and strength of our exam, our purpose for existing. We continually add questions, remove archaic ones, and review each question on the exam every year for applicability to practice.
- Robin Cogan and Lori Anderson as Co-Chairs of the Outreach Committee are working hard with state liaisons to develop a toolkit to help them both encourage school nurses to take the exam, but also to help them to be successful in passing.
Lastly, as I and Shirley Gordon will end our terms on the BOD at the end of the year, we will very soon be looking for two new board members to begin in January of 2021. We are looking to increase the diversity of our group in all ways. We especially will be looking for practicing school nurses or school nurse administrators from all across the county, as well as school nurses of color, new to the profession and experienced. We invite all NCSNs to consider becoming part of the NBCSN board. More information and the application can be found https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4437764/Board-Application.
Deborah J. Pontius, MSN, RN, NCSN, FNASN