Delegate Lionell Spruill Sr. is a community activist who sponsored the bill HB 1896. He serves on the Virginia House of Delegates in the 77th district and has been elected as a member of the Democratic National Committee. In addition, he is currently active on the Health, Welfare, and Institution Committee, the Counties, Cities, and Towns Committee, and on the Privileges and Elections Committee. This bill proposed to decrease the nurse to student ratio to 1: 1,000 in Virginia school systems. This bill would significantly increase the number of nurses in schools, which is currently only one nurse to every 8,000 students. This decrease in ratio could potentially influence students by improving healthcare provided to students, decrease non-life threatening ED visits, give students better health education, and increase attendance rates. Nurses could also benefit from this bill by increasing nursing employment opportunities and decrease stress on school nurses. An increase in the number of school nurses could act as a preventative method to children's health, which could decrease the amount of money spent on healthcare in the future.
The HB 1896 bill was offered to the House on January 11th, 2011 and remains in the House and is being reviewed by the Education Committee as of February 8th, 2011. The chief sponsor is Delegate Lionell Spruill Sr. and is co-sponsored by Rosalyn R. Dance. We will continue to track the progression of this bill.
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