School Nurse Organization of Minnesota.

The School Nurses Organization of Minnesota (SNOM) was formed in 1968 at the Minnesota Education Association (MEA) annual convention. Previous to that, K-12 school nurses in Minnesota had been members of the Student Personnel Section of MEA. The change gave the nurses some increase in status as a section subgroup; in 1972 their status was increased further when they became a separate affiliated section. The revised charter afforded greater autonomy and visibility for the school nurses, who had difficulty negotiating on a parity with classroom teachers up until that time. It also allowed the association to become a state affiliate of the NEA Department of School Nurses. The stated goals of the association were to improve the delivery of health care and health education to K-12 students in Minnesota, to promote the educational and professional advancement of school nurses, to give school nursing a more effective voice within MEA and NEA, to give school nurses a more unified and effective voice for statewide and local political lobbying, and to support research on student health issues.

SNOM efforts throughout its first decade centered around developing and securing acceptance for its certification proposal, which would require every school nurse to be a licensed RN with additional coursework in public health. The licensure proposal was finally accepted in by the Minnesota Department of Education 1979. Other efforts included lobbying for the nascent association in state government and school districts, and within the MEA, and the development of informational and curriculum materials, such as the Goals of School Nursing monograph. The name of the organization was changed to School Nurse Organization of Minnesota around 1979.

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