Welcome and Welcome Back to the 2025-26 school year! I wanted to share a few updates from SNOM.
We had a great time at the annual NASN conference in Austin, TX, June 26-29. A few notable highlights: Emily Mjelleli presented to the national and state affiliate leaders on how MN is collecting our Every Student Counts data. Stop #7 on the NASN Data Walk was the poster “Advancing Equity in School Health Services by School Nurses (Equity in SHS) in which MN collaborated with NASN to focus on supporting the school nurse role on the school based mental health team. A project was led by our fantastic state school nurse consultants. And SNOM member/St Kate’s faculty presented on their grant project in a poster presentation titled Addressing the Shortage in School Nursing: A Partnership Model for Diverse Workforce Development in Minnesota. Approximately 20 school nurses from Minnesota attended this year’s conference.
We held our Foundations for the Specialty Practice of School Nursing conference at the University of St. Catherine a few weeks ago. We had a great turnout with almost 90 brand new, or within the first couple of years, school nursing. The fantastic conference committee shared foundational information about this specialty practice from laws and framework, as well as how various aspects of nursing looks within a school setting. While there’s so much to learn in this practice, the fundamentals of what is most important to start their first years were well represented. A huge thank you to the University of St. Catherine nursing department for their partnership and hosting our conference this year.
Our executive board met this summer to review responses from this spring’s membership survey, in which we asked questions about SNOM’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for growth. We appreciate all members who took the time to provide feedback to this important survey. As a result, we were able to put together a strategic plan to propel our organization forward over the next 4 years. We are excited to share this with our members at our November conference!
I hope you all have a great start to your school year!