home
 
ESD 105

ESD 105 School Nurse Corps leader named “National School Nurse Administrator of the Year”

Gloria Hilsinger, School Nurse Corps coordinator for the ESD 105 region for the past 10 years, is the 2009 National School Nurse Administrator of the Year by the National Association of School Nurses.

Gloria travels to Boston to officially receive her big honor during the June 25-28 national conference of the National Association of School Nurses.  The award recognizes her work in expanding and strengthening communication among the nearly 50 school nurses throughout south central Washington, helping launch a mentoring program for new school nurses, strengthening the consistency of nurse practices, and developing an innovative guidebook for school health services.

She was notified in February of the national honor, for which she became a finalist after being selected as last year’s Washington State School Nursing Administrator of the Year by the School Nurse Organization of Washington.

Gloria has led the region’s School Nurse Corps since it started in 1999.  She had retired from her position at ESD 105 in July of 2008 before deciding come back this past September for one more year. 

ESD 105 Supt. Jane Gutting lauded the national recognition for the region’s school nurse leader, saying:  “Gloria is an exemplary public health professional who knows how to engage students, parents, and educators in meaningful dialog about sensitive issues so that students remain safe and healthy.  This national honor is well deserved because health of the whole child is Gloria’s first priority and is the heart of her work.”

Digital Storytelling program brought to incarcerated juveniles

For three days in March, ESD 105 partnered with Allied Arts of Yakima and the Yakima County Juvenile Corrections Facility to bring a combination of academic lessons, technical skills, and some personal hope to 10 incarcerated teenagers.

The Digital Storytelling workshop – which ESD 105 has earlier offered as a professional development training to educators – helped the selected lower-risk confined youths to put their thoughts on paper, record their stories in computer microphones, select music, and use audio and video editing software to document their life experiences.

ESD 105 had suggested bringing the arts-based program to the teens as a way to help them discover positive personal skills and to think more about themselves and the power of their personal stories.  The youths’ final products were then presented by Allied Arts of Yakima as part of its Latino Cultural Film Series in April.