School Nurse Graduate Certificate

If you are a registered nurse with a bachelor's degree but would like to get away from the whole hospital scene, you might be interested in an online graduate certificate in school nursing. A school nurse is a health care professional who works in an educational setting, such as a public or private school or university. Most school nursing jobs pay a little less than nurses who work in hospitals. The national average school nurse income is $43,000 per year. School nurses, however, get the benefits and time off that teachers get, which may be worth the lower income to many nurses. School nurse jobs can be more easily obtained if you have a school nurse graduate certificate. Most school districts require school nurses to have a school nurse certificate in order to work in the public schools, so an online learning program may be quite useful to those interested in becoming a school nurse.

The University of Phoenix offers an online school nurse graduate certificate. This online learning program consists of 24 semester hours. The entire program can be completed online. You'll take classes such as school nursing practice, health and disease management, and health assessment of the school-age child. This program was designed so that state and national school nurse standards could be met through this program.

The University of Illinois offers a school nursing certificate program which is mostly online. You have to meet on the Chicago campus once at the beginning of the semester, and again at the end. The rest of the classwork is completed online. Out of state students do not have to meet on campus. This program entails taking three online courses and 300 hours of a school setting internship.

Wright State University, Miami Valley also offers a school nurse graduate certificate program. This program consists of 22 hours of graduate level courses. You must be an RN, have a bachelor's degree, with a GPA of at least 2.7. This program consists of both online as well as campus-based classes. It appears that you must visit the campus in order to receive the certificate, but some of the courses are offered online.

Note- check with each school for accreditation.

1. University of Illinois

2. Wright State University

3. University of Phoenix