Asthma Control in the Twin Cities

I read an article in the Pioneer Press about students in Minneapolis and St Paul schools with asthma. Students as young as five are learning how to better manage their asthma. This article initially sparked my attention because I too, have asthma. Suzanne Sobotka, the author of this article, informs the reader that this chronic condition affects Minneapolis schools at a high rate of twelve percent and St Paul schools with ten and one half percent. The school nurse at the Mississippi Creative Arts Magnet School, states that initiating a healthy learner progam to young students can be done with other chronic conditions, but since so many students have asthma, that is the condition they're started with. The program invovles more parent-nurse relationship and managment techniques that are easy to understand.
By establishing a better parent-nurse relationship, the nurse knows what the student's asthma symptoms are doing at home. It is also helpful that this information is coming from the parents, especially in cases where the students are in third grade and lower because it results in more straight forward and true answers. Managment techniques that are introduced to the students include different "zones." The green zone means that asthma symptoms won't be troubling, the yellow zone means to take caution, and the red zone means that students are more than likely to need medication.
Personally, I think that this is a great way to teach children, especially at a young age, what signs to look for. I am sure that I didn't know what particular activities would cause me to have worse days then others and I think that it would have been very helpful. I also like the fact that the school nurse is so involved with this program. I can remember feeling bothersome every time I went to see the school nurse at my elementary school. I felt like she never cared. I'm sure many other students (particularily the ones that attended my elementary school) felt the same, which is very disheartening because this means that they too felt too intimidated to go see the school nurse. I was very happy to see that the twin cities is taking a step in the right direction with teaching young children how to manage their asthma.