Aileen Archibald remembers what it was like to be a school nurse almost 20 years ago when she started working for the Simi Valley Unified School District.

The hardest things she had to deal with back then, she said, were coping with more and more diagnosed cases of Attention Deficit Disorder and making sure students were immunized.

"Now it's much more complex," admitted Archibald, who has been the lead nurse of the district since 1996. "You've got more anxiety attacks, more depression. Drug problems. Parents are busy with their lives, not necessarily with their children.

"That's why having a good education system and a lot of support behind these kids is really what's needed," she said.

Archibald's experience and her dedication to helping students in a variety of situations ultimately led to her election to the California School Nurses Organization board. She started serving her two-year term as secretary in February.

Archibald knew she wanted to enter the nursing profession when she watched a female nurse in a white uniform and a white hat working at a hospital.

"She was so professional and classy," Archibald recalled. "I watched how she cared for people and supported them. I wanted to be like that."

She became a registered nurse in the 1980s and worked at a hospital before quitting to raise her two children. When they began school, Archibald applied to become a school nurse with the district.

As lead nurse, Archibald oversees seven nurses spread out over 30 schools in Simi Valley. She has a long list of duties, from training teachers in CPR and first aid, to supervising health and physical assessments, to conducting vision, hearing and dental screenings.

She also deals with more difficult situations: suicidal students, girls who have just learned they're pregnant, teens having trouble at home. She talks with students about puberty, HIV/AIDS, physical abuse, drug dependency.

"The most rewarding part of my job is knowing what I did helped a kid, and what I did will be with that kid for the rest of his life," she said.

Archibald, who also has a master's degree in education from Cambridge College, said she had been a member of CSNO for years and has often turned to the organization for information. A big project right now is the development of training videos so that health clerks and others know how to administer a wider range of medications.

Archibald said she brings back what she learns to her Simi Valley colleagues, whom she admires greatly.

"All the nurses in the district deserve an applause because people don't know all that school nurses do," she said. "They don't see everything."

And while the profession has gone far beyond bandages and bruises, nursing basics still count.

"For me, my reward is knowing some little child is better because I helped them and I put a smile on their face," said Archibald.

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