By Melanie Patterson

The North Jefferson News



As far as anyone at Fultondale Elementary is concerned, Brandy Granade’s real name is Nurse Brandy.

Even the staff and faculty call Granade by her nickname.

A school nurse at Fultondale Elementary School for five years, Granade was awarded the Alabama Department of Education 2008 Alabama Practical Nurse of the Year at a ceremony Thursday in Florence.

“It floored me,” said Granade, a licensed practical nurse, who did not even know she had been nominated.

Granade found out she won when FES assistant principal Reta Hayes made the announcement over the school intercom on May 21. The Alabama Department of Education had just notified her by telephone.

Granade said she could hear teachers throughout the school screaming for joy over the announcement.

The FES teachers and staff had worked hard with many other people to keep Granade’s nomination a secret.

Both Melaney Grubbs, RN, the school nurse at Fultondale High School, and Karen Orton, RN, nurse coordinator for the Jefferson County Board of Education, nominated Granade for the award.

In addition, FES teachers, parents, students and some of Granade’s nurse colleagues wrote letters to the state in support of her nomination.

“Brandy is, without a doubt, one of the most professional, thoughtful and compassionate nurses I have ever had the pleasure to be associated with in my career as a nurse,” said Orton. “Her organization skills are flawless and the nursing care her students and faculty receive at Fultondale Elementary is superb.”

Orton said that Granade “reflects the ideal that every nurse should strive for.”

In just five years, Granade has seen big changes in the schools.

When Granade first became a school nurse five years ago, she had 11 schools assigned to her stretching from Fultondale to Warrior.

Some of the schools she never visited because there was simply not enough time.

A few months after the board of education hired her, they also hired another nurse for northern Jefferson County, cutting Granade’s assigned schools to six.

As the board gradually hired more nurses, Granade served four schools for two years, and then finally last year she was assigned to only one school – FES.

As a school nurse, there is no such thing as a predictable day.

“A lot of what I do is your typical tummy-ache, bumps and bruises,” said Granade. “But you never know what a day will bring. In a school with 700 kids, a day can bring on anything.”

During the cold and flu season, Granade said it is not unusual for 30 to 40 students a day to stop by her office with sore throats, fever, headaches and stomach aches.

That doesn’t even count the daily medications that Granade hands out to students.

Granade said she is fortunate in that Sue Duke, an administrative aid at FES, has received medication assistant training through the Jefferson County Board of Education.

Duke is trained to give out medications when Granade is called away to another part of the school for an emergency or is trying to call a sick child’s parent.

“She’s just great,” said Granade. “She knows all the kids and she’s always willing to step in.”

That is the way the staff and faculty at FES seem to feel about Granade.

“She’s just wonderful,” said Fultondale Elementary School principal Cynde Cornelius. “She’s one of those people that genuinely cares. I think the children know that, the teachers know it and the parents know it.”

Cornelius said that Granade not only takes care of students.

“She’s just as caring with the faculty and staff as she is with the children,” Cornelius said. “She takes care of all of us.”

Before she became a school nurse, Granade worked at St. Vincent’s Hospital for three years and at Gardendale Pediatrics for almost five years.

She and her husband Mike live in Kimberly with their daughters Abby, entering the sixth grade at North Jefferson Middle School in the fall, and Mary Lauren, entering the fifth grade at Bryan Elementary School.