Being a high school nurse is already a hard enough job before COVID, but the pandemic has “changed the job description” in the opinion of nurse Amber Cook.

“I feel like I do probably 95% COVID related things this year,” Cook said. “My aide [Alicia Abbott] gets more interaction with the students giving medications, screening them and calling parents, because now I’m the COVID expert.”

Even with the problems that get in the way of working and even being able to socialize like a normal human being, Cook said she still enjoys working as a nurse.

“I’m glad to be a recourse for families, and I’m glad to be there to answer their questions and support them in any way, but I don’t enjoy sending children home that don’t need to be sent home,” Cook said. “I feel like students need to be in class to learn and now I send children home unnecessarily.”

Cook said the specific list of symptoms that require her to send students home is tough when she can’t use her own judgment.

Students have to be sent home for things like a headache, stomachache, small fever, and anything else that is a COVID symptom.

“The quarantine process is guided by Tarrant Country CDC,” Cook said. “The CDC has some recommendations and the government has really you know when the when COVID started everything came from, you know, Texas level.”

Cook always knew that she’d be in the medical field, but she didn’t always know what she wanted to be.

“When I was at Texas A&M for my undergraduate, I followed a physical therapist,” Cook said. “I really don’t think I would have made that great of a physical therapist, but I do know I sure do love nursing.”

Cook said she loves her job as a school nurse.

“I knew that I liked the medical field, but I can’t say that I have ever in 21 years looked back,” Cook said. “I am 100% doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”