School nurses
This is in response to “As classes teach kids ABCs, school nurses offer key TLC” (News, May 24). While I appreciate Tribune reporter Barbara Mahany‘s piece, giving well-deserved attention to school nurses, I believe she missed the mark.
I say this because my sister was a school nurse for many years and she always lamented that the perception of her job was to wipe noses and bandage skinned knees.
Far from it!
From the time school starts in the fall, she is chasing down parents whose kids have not had their required immunizations; then there is the day-to-day keeping track of all the kids who need attention/medications for asthma, diabetes and food allergies.
School nurses have demanding jobs and are grossly underpaid for the responsibility they bear.
I hope those who are lucky enough to have a child in a school with a nurse on staff realize what a service they are getting!
— Jacqueline Kotz, Chicago
Student health
Barbara Mahany‘s sentiments toward school nurses were not only kind and accurate in terms of how parents view their school nurses, they also rang true for public health professionals.
Since 1940 when the Cook County Department of Public Health was established, we have been working with schools to protect the health of school-age children in suburban Cook County.
Flash-forward to today: Times have definitely changed, but one thing certainly remains the same — school nurses are public health’s eyes and ears in schools.
As the chief operating officer for the Cook County Department of Public Health, I see it firsthand. School nurses are in close contact with our staff to obtain technical assistance in the control of communicable diseases, such as norovirus, pertussis, meningitis, influenza or other health problems.
During the 2009 H1N1 epidemic, school nurses played a vital role in helping CCDPH successfully vaccinate more than 109,000 kindergarten though 12th grade students in suburban Cook County at 617 schools within four months. The school nurses knew their students were in the age range that posed one of the highest risks for getting the H1N1 virus. They helped advocate for CCDPH to come to their schools to vaccinate and worked alongside us to protect their students.
A couple weeks ago, CCDPH held a public health meeting for school nurses. We gathered their input on how we can continue strengthening our relationship with them, and we shared new and updated communicable disease and other health materials that will assist them in their daily work. That morning, I congratulated the school nurses on their success in protecting the public health of their students.
Parents and public health staff alike cannot tell them enough how much we value their work.
— Stephen A. Martin Jr., chief operating officer, Cook County Department of Public Health, Oak Forest Hospital Campus
Rahm’s job
It seems like every picture you print of the new mayor shows Rahm Emanuel with an ear-to-ear, giddy grin. He seems so eminently happy to be seated on the mayor’s throne. It’s almost as though, after a long journey, he has finally arrived in the position that he was born to hold, to a city he was always meant to lead. You can almost see the gears of his mind happily turning, working, planning how to arrange everything, put everything in order. He appears to fit into the mayor’s office like a hand fits into a glove.
Destiny has spoken.
It was meant to be.
I am hopeful.
Welcome home and good luck, Mayor Emanuel!
— Sue Ellen Levins, Chicago
Gambling in Chicago
I applaud Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for his consideration of having casinos in the Chicagoland area. It should enhance the opportunity to further improve job growth, add much-needed revenue into an otherwise empty cash register and have a positive effect on investment stimulus push for education, which the young people of the city of Chicago truly need.
If the political and civic-minded parties concur, then Chicago could become another mecca for gambling and other adult activities.
As the mayor said, if specific “conditions” fall into place, the economic activity as seen in other such areas could invite the adult populace to invest in Illinois as we already have seen via the Illinois Lottery.
— Richard J. White, Elmhurst
Beyond change
“Change” seems to be the operative slogan to cause people to nod their heads, hypnotically, in agreement.
President Barack Obama has proclaimed that it is change we need.
His friend, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is following that strategy.
Change offers nothing.
I, for one, have had enough of such noncommittal rhetoric, haven’t you? How do we get the improvement, growth or advancement that we have always needed?
Chicago’s educational, transportation health care systems, for example, need more than change. We don’t need something different; we need something better.
— Leon J. Hoffman, Chicago
Closer to work
The recent article “Gas prices are cutting into job hunt; Many can’t pay to fill up, look far and wide for work” (Page 1, May 23) notes that some businesses have started screening candidates to select only those who live nearby because they know that lengthy, costly commutes can speed turnover.
Other companies are taking a different approach: helping workers live closer to the job through employer-assisted housing programs.
I introduced this benefit at my former company located in St. Charles in 2000.
We provided down-payment assistance to help more than 75 workers buy homes closer to work, and actually saw bottom-line savings through improved employee performance and reduced turnover.
Now there’s the Commute Options pilot in metropolitan Chicago, led by the Metropolitan Planning Council and the Civic Consulting Alliance.
It’s one piece of reaching our region’s goal of taking 19,000 cars off the road.
During this pilot, participating employers are offering their workers a range of options — from car-sharing to vanpools, from transit fare benefits to employer-assisted housing — to help reduce their commutes, support alternatives like biking or taking the train, or living closer to work.
Happier employees, higher productivity, less turnover:
That’s the kind of business investment that makes sense.
— King Harris, chairman, Harris Holdings Inc., chair, Board of Governors, Metropolitan Planning Council, Chicago
