Can you bean aide for special ed people and be a nurse??

One possibility is to be a special education nurse. I am a special education teacher, and our district hires nurses for 2 main types of jobs. Registered Nurses fill the school nurse positions. In my district, these nurses are usually itinerant, meaning that they travel between the different schools that have special education classes. They screen the students for vision and hearing, respond to calls from the teacher about health concerns, interface with parents and doctors about medical issues, etc. Licensed Vocational Nurses (known as Practical Nurses in some states) fill another type of position in our special ed classrooms. Some of our students have medical conditions that require a nurse to be there as an aide. These may be students who have tracheotomies (breathing tubes), severe seizure disorders, indwelling catheters, gastrostomies (feeding tubes) etc. The nurse takes care of the student’s medical issues while also assisting them with classroom activities.

I agree with the earlier writer you can earn you nursing license and then choose to work in a special eduation facility. Usually in larger areas, there are schools/group homes/institutions set up for medically fragile individuals. You provide some direct care and provide training and supervision for the staff. Probably some home visits and team (staff, parents, etc) meetings would be involved, too.

Since these are very involved kids you might want to seek your BSN or higher to make yourself the most competitive for these positions. These jobs are often weekday only positions with more autonomy and therefore sought after by nurses. Of course, if that’s not your thing there are plenty of other positions to go around. Sometimes you might even be paid to care for a medically fragile individual in his or her home just with a nursing assistant’s certification.

I would personally recommend going for the nursing position before going to the teacher’s aide. The benefits and demand are greater….which makes paying your bills easier. 🙂 Best wishes!

i think the hardest part would be the nursing and the school hours. nurses often work 3 days on and 3 days off… or something of the back and forth sort. aides are usually needed for every full day of school. the student needs the consistency. if you could find a student who is being mainstreamed and only needs an aide half the day for the general education classes… that would help you.

but other than the conflicting hours – i think doing both would be very rewarding for you. i’m sure you’d love it!

Actually, that’s not a bad idea at all. Many students in special ed are medically fragile, so having some back ground would be useful. You would still be restricted by rules at to what you are allowed to do, but the prior knowledge would be beneficial.

that would be a good thing because many people with developmental delays also have medical problems. I taught a boy in my sped class that had muscular dystrophy and another one had spina bifida. one had diabetes and several had epilepsy. a nurse would have been nice to have for an aide.