Guide to the Ohio Association of School Nurses Records


Title:
Ohio Association of School Nurses Records
Repository:
Wright State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives
Phone: 937-775-2092
http://www.libraries.wright.edu/special/
Creator:
Ohio Association of School Nurses
Dates:
1949-2017
Bulk dates:
1965-2017
Quantity:
18.29 linear feet
Abstract:
Founded in 1973, the Ohio Association of School Nurses provides a setting where school nurses can share their experiences and work together to achieve common health care goals. One of the association's earliest successes was obtaining the passage of a law requiring the certification of school nurses. Another significant goal that the Ohio Association of School Nurses struggled to achieve for several years was mandatory school health services. The collection consists of minutes, committee records, scrapbooks, and records documenting the organization and its relationship with other associations.
Identification:
FSC-41
Language:
The records are in English

History of Ohio Association of School Nurses

The Ohio Association of School Nurses was founded in 1973. On October 16, 1972, several school nurses met with the officers of the Ohio Education Association to discuss the possibility of forming an association for school nurses. The Ohio Education Association agreed to help the school nurses organize an association. The first meeting of the Ohio Association of School Nurses occurred on May 19, 1973. The Ohio Association of School Nurses became an affiliate organization of the Ohio Education Association in 1975.

The Ohio Association of School Nurses provides a setting where school nurses can share their experiences and work together to achieve common health care goals. One of the association's earliest successes was obtaining the passage of a law requiring the certification of school nurses. This law required all potential school nurses to receive certificates from the Ohio Department of Education before they could practice in a school setting. In order to receive a certificate, new nurses had to have a Bachelor's Degree. Later, school nurses had to obtain a specified number of continuing education credits biannually in order to have their certificates renewed.

Another significant goal that the Ohio Association of School Nurses struggled to achieve for several years was mandatory school health services. Mandatory school health services would require each school to have one school nurse for a specified number of students such as one nurse for every 750 students. In the late 1970s, the association unsuccessfully sponsored several mandatory school health services bills. When the State of Ohio revised the State Minimum Standards for Elementary and Secondary Schools, the Ohio Association of School Nurses worked to have mandatory school health services incorporated into the new standards. However, mandatory school health services was left out of the final draft of the new standards, and the Ohio Association of School Nurses renewed their quest to achieve their goal through legislative means. In 1986, the Ohio Association of School Nurses formed the Mandatory School Health Services Committee (later called the Healthy Learner Legislation Committee) to organize support for the mandate. By 1994, the last Healthy Learner bill had failed and the organization was forced to admit defeat in this area. Although the Ohio Association of School Nurses failed to achieve its goal of mandatory school health services, the association continues to work for improved standards for school nurses and quality health care for all children through legislative means and a variety of multi-organizational health committees.

The organization has a web site at
https://www.oasn.org/.

Scope and Content

Series 1: Administrative Records, contains meeting minutes and records describing the organizational principles of the association. The series spans the years 1973 to 2017. It is broken up into three subseries.

Subseries 1-A: Officers, contains lists of the association's officers from 1975 to 2005 and 2015-2016. It also includes several officers' handbooks (1979-2003) that describe the duties of each office and how each position has evolved over the years. A particularly interesting item is a notebook that Norma Nikkola kept while she was president of the organization during the 1998-1999 term. This subseries spans the years 1975 to 2016.

Subseries 1-B: Organization, contains primarily copies of the constitution and bylaws from 1973 to 2015. The subseries also contains revision drafts of these documents and correspondence that pertains to the revision process. Another file is filled with maps and correspondence that describes the organization of the Ohio Association of School Nurses seven regional associations.

Subseries 1-C: Minutes, is the largest of the three subseries, with minutes dating from 1975 to 2017. Minutes from the association's Board of Directors meetings are the most prevalent type of minutes found in the subseries. This set of minutes is nearly complete and spans the years 1975 to 2017. The other major type of minutes found in this subseries is minutes from the annual meeting between the Board of Directors and the association's members. The subseries also contains a few minutes from the Executive Board meetings. A copy of the treasurer's report presented at the meeting is attached to most of the minutes. Beginning in the late 1980s, the minutes also include copies of documents that were discussed at the meeting such as correspondence and representative or committee reports as well as supplementary documents attached to the reports. The dates supplied in brackets on some of the reports and supplementary documents are the dates of the meetings they were discussed at not the dates that the documents were written. There is also one file of minutes from meetings between the President of the Ohio Association of School Nurses and the presidents of its regional associations. Minutes from 1998 to 2017 (added during processing in 2020) were received in chronological order, rather than by type, so they have remained in this chronological order. Minutes from this time period also tended to contain all reports, correspondence, and other attachments discussed at those meetings, and that original order was maintained. Also due to original order, some annual meeting minutes may be filed in the Annual Conference folder.

Series 2: Correspondence, contains letters to and from various members of the Board of Directors as well as official correspondence. The letters range from form letters such as the meeting notifications to heartfelt pleas to legislators to support a particular bill or type of legislation such as mandatory school health services. When possible, the correspondence is arranged by topic but some general letters are arranged by organization. For instance, a letter from the Ohio Education Association dealing with a legislative issue is located in the legislative correspondence file but a form letter from the same organization to the heads of its affiliates is located in the Ohio Education Association file. Materials in this series date from 1973 to 1998.

Series 3: Committees, is the largest series in the collection, and materials date from 1965 to 1998. The files are arranged alphabetically by the title of the committee and then by subject within each committee. The types of records found for the various committees range from correspondence pertaining to committee activities and minutes from committee meetings to articles covering issues the committee was working on. Most of the files in the series deal with the Legislative Committee, Membership, the Mandatory School Health Services Committee, and its later incarnation the Healthy Learner Legislation Committee. In reality, some of the things listed under committees were usually carried out by a committee of one such as the activities of the Historian and the Membership Chair. However, these positions were included with the committees because they were listed under standing committees in the meeting minutes and in the officer's handbooks. The series also contains records from the committee responsible for establishing the association and from a few multi-organizational committees that had representatives from the Ohio Association of School Nurses such as the State Planning Committee for Health Education in Ohio. An item of particular note in this series is a Request for a Secretarial Review compiled in regards to Ohio's compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Series 4: Certification, focuses on the State of Ohio's requirement that school nurses be certified by the Ohio Department of Education and the standards for certification. The series includes a copy of the bill requiring the certification of nurses, correspondence, resolutions about certification, standards for certification, and information about the revision of certification standards. The series also contains a few documents concerning the licensure of school nurses. Materials in this series date from 1965 to 1998.

Series 5: Minimum Standards, explores the Ohio Association of School Nurses attempt to work mandatory school health services into the revised version of Ohio's State Minimum Standards for Elementary and Secondary Schools. The series is comprised of correspondence, recommended minimum standards, lists of meeting dates for the Standards Revision Committee, presentations to the Standards Revision Committee, and surveys about school health services in Ohio. Materials in this series date from 1975 to 1983.

Series 6: Newsletters, includes OASN Notes from 1974 to 1993 and OASN Newsletter from 1994 to 1998, as well as scattered issues of OASN Newsletter dating between 2000 and 2012. The series also contains one file of newsletters from the National Association of School Nurses (the Ohio Association of School Nurses is an affiliate of this organization). The NASNewsletter spans the years 1981 to 1997 but many of the newsletters for these years are missing. Overall, materials in this series date from 1974 to 2012.

Series 7: Conferences and Workshops, contains information on various educational workshops and conferences, from 1971 to 2016. The dates on the files are the days that the conference or workshop took place. The majority of the files in this series deal with the Ohio Association of School Nurses Annual Conference. These files cover the years 1978 to 2016, with very few gaps. Most files include programs, reports from the Annual Meeting, and information presented at workshops held during the conferences. Some files also contain confirmation correspondence, handwritten notes from the workshops, and materials picked up from booths at the conferences. The series also includes records from other conferences or workshops that members of the Ohio Association of School Nurses attended such as Ohio Nurses Association conventions and the School Nurse and Nutrition Workshop.

Series 8: Scrapbooks, contains ten scrapbooks span the years 1972 to 1999. The dates on the files are the inclusive dates of the entire scrapbook not the part of the scrapbook in each file. The scrapbooks contain photographs, clippings, certificates of affiliation, awards, and extra copies of newsletters. The scrapbooks also include additional sets of meeting minutes and the reports that go with the minutes.

Series 9: Publications, includes several editions of A Guide to School Nursing in Ohio compiled by the Ohio Association of School Nurses (editions included span from 1978 to 2007). It also contains several issues of School Nurse. Other publications in the series are the Ohio Nurses Review, Asthma Magazine, and Jehovah's Witnesses and the Question of Blood. The series also includes a calendar from 2000 that features healthcare tips. Overall, materials in this series date from 1970 to 2007.

Series 10: Associations and Departments, is the second largest series in the collection, with materials spanning from 1967 to 1998. This series contains records from nursing associations and state agencies that the Ohio Association of School Nurses worked with on a regular basis. This series is arranged alphabetically by organization and then by subject within each organization. The majority of the files cover the National Association of School Nurses, the Ohio Nurses Association, and the Ohio Department of Health. The files for the National Association of School Nurses and the Ohio Nurses Association include items such as brochures, bylaws, policy statements, resolutions, and reports. The files for the Ohio Department of Health focus on its Ohio Commission on Nursing Implementation Project and Ohio Council of Nurses committees. The files for the two committees contain such things as minutes and committee correspondence. Other organizations covered in this series include the American Nurses' Association, the Department of School Nurses (the predecessor of the National Association of School Nurses), the Ohio Department of Education, and the Ohio Education Association.

Series 11: School Districts, contains information about school nursing in school districts where various members of the Ohio Association of School Nurses worked. The files are arranged alphabetically by school district and then by subject within each district. The series focuses on Dayton Public Schools and Vandalia-Butler City Schools. The files on Dayton Public Schools include clippings, a history of school nursing in the district, and A Manual for School Nurses compiled in 1949. The files for Vandalia-Butler City Schools contain staff directories, a substitute teacher's handbook, and one of the school's newsletters. Materials in this series date from 1949 and 1967 to 1993.

Statement of Arrangement

The collection is arranged in 11 series:
Series 1: Administrative Records, 1973-2017
Subseries 1-A: Officers, 1975-2016
Subseries 1-B: Organization, 1973-2015
Subseries 1-C: Minutes, 1975-2017
Series 2: Correspondence, 1973-1998
Series 3: Committees, 1965-1998
Series 4: Certification, 1965-1998
Series 5: Minimum Standards, 1975-1983, undated
Series 6: Newsletters, 1974-2012
Series 7: Conferences and Workshops, 1971-2016
Series 8: Scrapbooks, 1972-1999
Series 9: Publications, 1970-2007
Series 10: Associations and Departments, 1967-1998
Series 11: School Districts, 1949, 1967-1993

Restrictions on Use

Copyright restrictions may apply. Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

Restrictions on Access

There are no restrictions on accessing materials in this collection.

Related Material: Related Material

FSC-44: Southwest Ohio School Nurses Association Records

MS-472: Lovetta R. Blanke Collection


Separated Material: Separated Material

Oversize documents have been separated to oversize map-case drawer storage. All content from the former Series 10, Southwest Ohio School Nurses Association (SWOSNA), has been separated to its own collection (FSC-44), as SWOSNA is a separate, distinct organization, with its own constitution, by-laws, officers, etc. The SWOSNA materials were donated to Wright State at the same time as, and by the same people as, the OASN materials.


Subject Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

School nursing -- Ohio

Organizations/Corporations:

Ohio Association of School Nurses -- Archives

Occupations:

Nurses -- Ohio

Material Types:

Correspondence
Minutes
Newsletters
Scrapbooks

Preferred Citation

[Description of item, Date, Box #, Folder #], FSC-41, Ohio Association of School Nurses Records, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio

Acquisition Information

The collection was donated to the Fordham Health Sciences Library at Wright State University by the Ohio Association of School Nurses in October 2000. The collection was later transferred to Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University Libraries, when the Fordham Library was closed.

Processing Information

The previously existing Series 13: Oversize contained only two items (proclamations), which have been added to Series 2: Correspondence.


Other Finding Aid

The finding aid is available on the Special Collections & Archives, Wright State University Libraries web site at
https://wright.libraryhost.com/repositories/2/resources/872.