Cherokee County Honors School Nurses With New Awards

CHEROKEE COUNTY, GA — The Cherokee County School District celebrated National School Nurse Appreciation Day with the presentation of its inaugural Nurse of the Year Awards.

The top school nurse selected for each Innovation Zone (a high school and its feeder schools) was surprised with award presentations earlier this month. They now advance to a Cherokee County School District Nurse of the Year Award program, with the winner to be selected by a panel of nursing professionals and retired educators and announced at a new professional development event for school nurses this summer.

The winners are:

• Cherokee Zone: Charlene Dalfonso of Liberty Elementary School
• Creekview Zone: Susan Grant of Macedonia Elementary School
• Etowah Zone: Nadia Jones of Oak Grove Elementary School Fine Arts Academy
• River Ridge Zone: Annette Fountain of Little River Elementary School
• Sequoyah Zone: Erin Krantz of Sequoyah High School
• Woodstock Zone: Amy Hagan of Carmel Elementary School

The presentations of gift cards and honor banners to the Zone winners and the overall prize to be presented to the Cherokee County winner are sponsored by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, a district partner. Children’s also will be sponsoring the summer professional development.

“We would not have been able to successfully offer our students in-person school this school year without the incredible dedication and care shown by our school nurses,” Superintendent Brian Hightower said. “Their expertise has been critical in our response to COVID. They have done double-duty this year, as while they took on new responsibilities including contact tracing and providing our school communities with accurate COVID information, they also continued to provide professional healthcare services to our schools every day. I appreciate every school nurse and all that they have done this year to keep our schools open for our students.”