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Delaware is still debating whether to reopen in-person classes at public schools this month, but if they’re ready, our Nurse of the Week, Mispillion Elementary’s school nurse Sue Smith will be ready too.

After 25 years of working for the Milford school district—and seven years of nursing at Mispillion Elementary—the Delaware School Nursing Association’s 2019 School Nurse of the Year is not easily rattled. As the pandemic started to spread last year, Smith’s extensive experience prompted local officials to add her to Delaware Governor John Carney and the Delaware Department of Education’s Health and Wellness Workgroup for School Reopening, where she helped to assess the state’s plan to send kids back to school.

Smith has been ready to return to care for her kids since last fall when Delaware schools opened and swiftly sputtered to a close when Covid-19 cases began breaking out within days. Back when People magazine spoke to the 62-year-old school nurse in September, Smith’s view was quite matter-of-fact: “In my nurse’s office, I’ll still feel very comfortable doing what I normally do. I’ll have my mask and goggles on because I’ll be very close to the children, but I’ll feel very confident doing an assessment. Of course, I think there’s always going to be a level of anxiety for the unknown because this virus is an unknown. We don’t have a crystal ball to tell us everything will be okay. It’s not about if someone’s going to get infected — it’s when. But I truly believe we’re prepared to handle it.”

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Mispillion Elementary Principal Teresa Wallace told Delaware State News that she places the utmost confidence in her school nurse. “She’s helped the district prepare and helped our school prepare. She is in the field of nursing and has a lot of background, not just as a school nurse, but in other areas. I feel like her knowledge base is really important in dealing with something that has so many unknowns.”

Smith’s debut in the pages of America’s best-known celebrity periodical hasn’t phased her. Asked about her remarks in People, she said, “All school nurses are feeling the same anxieties and those kinds of things. It’s important to know that in Delaware we’re all trying to work together to help each other.” What does she plan to do with her brush with fame? “I probably will put it [the magazine] in a frame for my granddaughter. That way, she’ll have it for a long, long time.”

Click the link to see Sue Smith’s appearance in People magazine.

Koren Thomas
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