During the 43 years of RBHS’ existence, the school has been home to a single nurse for the entire student body. But with the addition of freshmen into the student population, the current nurse, Tammy Adkins, began to feel overwhelmed because of the number of students and the paperwork that came with her job.
This led to the addition of the newest member to RBHS’ medical team, Nurse Lisa Griggs.
According to the National Association for School Nurses, the recommended ratio of nurses to students is 1:750, RBHS was due for the addition long before the freshman class arrived. Adkins appreciates the extra help and welcomes Griggs’ assistance and companionship, while she hopes to be able to establish more personal connections with students.
“With the amount of work I had, it took me a long time to get through the things I needed to get through,” Adkins said. “My real epiphany came when I was working on some paperwork, and I called another nurse at a different school to ask for help. It turned out that they had finished weeks ago while I was just getting to it now. I felt really mired down. All the things I really liked about being a school nurse, like interacting and getting to know students, I wasn’t getting to do as much because I had so much paper work.”
Being an RBHS graduate, Griggs is quite familiar with the school, despite still needing time to acclimate to the school’s work environment.
“My first couple of weeks here have been very busy,” Griggs said. “ I’ve spent most of my time trying to get to know students and to figure out how things work at RBHS. Every school is similar, yet each one runs a little bit differently.”
Along with procedural differences, Griggs claims that the students at RBHS are greatly different than that of her old school, West Middle School.
“High schoolers are a lot more independent by the time they get here. At West, I was helping kids get to the point [where they are] ready to get to high school,” Griggs said. ”Now, it’s great seeing how independent the kids are.”
While she has gotten used to working alone, Adkins feels more than comfortable sharing her work space with the new member as she is  well experienced with working with kids.
“She’s been a school nurse for several years, so it’s not like she came in as a brand new nurse,” Adkins said. “She came in with a lot of great experience and is getting used to RBHS really fast.”
This experience has made itself apparent not only to Atkins, but to students that have come to see Griggs.
“Nurse Griggs was really nice when I talked to her,” junior Katie Ritchie said. “It didn’t really feel too different than talking to Nurse [Adkins], which is great [for] new people, especially when they’re dealing with medical or personal problems.”
So far, Griggs claims that her return to RBHS has been nothing but welcoming and happy.
“I’ve loved coming back to RBHS. I’ve had three kids go through here and it’s been a really great experience coming back,” Griggs said.