By Kate Griesmann
Staff Writer
CHAPEL HILL — For the last two years, Nakeizha Robinson, 11, has missed more days of school than she attended. Instead of sitting in math class or going to lunch, three days a week Nakeizha, a sixth-grader from Greenville with end-stage kidney disease, could be found hooked up to a dialysis machine.
On those days, about halfway through the three-hour treatments, Karen Weatherly, a UNC Hospital School teacher, would stop in to work with Nakeizha. As other patients in the room dozed or watched television, the pair practiced the same concepts that Nakeizha’s class was covering, helping her stay on top of her schoolwork even in her absence.
The UNC Hospital School, founded in 1965, provides instruction and assistance to more than 2000 students with serious medical issues each year. Funded by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School District, the N.C. Department of Education and UNC Hospitals, the school is largely unknown to people in the community, but affects the lives of children across the state.
“One of the challenges is that education is not the primary reason the kids are in your school,†said Principal Flicka Bateman, who has spent her career working in hospital-school environments, including 13 years in her current position. “As important as school is, it is secondary to the medical needs.â€
Often that means lessons are scheduled and rescheduled around medical procedures, physical therapy and a student’s energy level that particular day. This balancing act often leaves Weatherly asking, “Do I push this kid today? Or do I say, ‘This kid needs to rest today.’â€
Weatherly has been at the school for 10 years and, like all of the school’s teachers, has a special-education degree. She and five other teachers make up the school’s pediatrics department, while another five work in psychiatry. The two departments, while sharing a principal, media specialist and other faculty, operate differently in order to best meet the needs – both academically and medically – of their students.
In pediatrics, teachers are assigned to a particular medical department, such as oncology, burns or, in Weatherly’s case, nephrology. Teachers work with students in that department regardless of what grade they are in. Sometimes, as in Nakeizha’s case, teachers will have the same students off and on for years; other times they may only see them for a few days.
Depending on a student’s mobility, teachers may lead bedside lessons or bring students to the pediatrics’ classroom – a cheerful room with large windows and just a few desks. Nearby is a media center and a preschool room that resembles many kindergarten classes across the state.
“We want to do as much as we can to normalize their experience while they’re here,†Weatherly said. “It’s one thing to be a kid these days; but these kids, on top of everything else, have a chronic medical illness.â€
A positive environment
A few floors down in psychiatry, students are split into classes according to their ages. The teachers here try to emulate a structured classroom routine, and because these children have often had negative experiences in school, the goal is creating a positive environment.
“A main focus of what we do is working on their behavior,†said teacher Elin Nagel, who works in the psychiatry primary class. “You really see a tremendous amount of change in a short amount of time.â€
Nagel has worked in the psychiatry class for eight years and finds the work incredibly rewarding, if challenging at times. Teachers often run the risk of burn out after years of hearing difficult and heartbreaking stories from families, but Nagel has learned how to cope with them and still continue to do a job she loves. “In order to be helpful, you have to keep your distance,†she said. “You have to keep good boundaries.â€
Since students are limited to the hospital building, the school works with other organizations to bring the wider world to them. Through partnerships with the N.C. Museum of History and the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, students participate in online fieldtrips several times a month. A program called Healing and Hope Through Science brings a science teacher to the hospital to lead hands-on experiments each week.
The average length of stay for a Hospital School student is nine days, which means teachers are constantly meeting new students, coordinating with home schools and coming up with lessons at the spur of the moment.
“It has its pluses and its minuses,†said Bateman of the school’s student turnover rate. “You certainly don’t want kids to stay so you can feel gratified in working with them … but sometimes by the time you figure out a strategy that will work, the child leaves.â€
Some families come prepared with books, assignments and homework. For others, contacting a school about makeup assignments is the furthest thing from their minds. It’s the job of the Hospital School staff to make sure the needs of all those students are met equally well, and it’s something for which many parents – and students – are grateful for.
For students such as Nakeizha, who know the hospital routines and staff as well as those of their home school, the hospital school offers an additional support system and opportunities to feel successful and hopeful.
Hopeful is a word to describe Nakeizha and her team of doctors this week. After a year on the transplant list, Nakeizha received a new kidney last Wednesday, meaning her future may include less time at the hospital and more time with her peers. While she recovers from surgery, Nakeizha can expect daily visits from Weatherly, reminding her that school is part of being a kid – even a kid with a new kidney.