With flu season at its peak, many Chamblee students are falling prey to sickness. Toward the end of January, at the height of such an affliction, Chamblee Charter High School welcomed Dorean Levenberg to its staff to fill the vacancy of full time nurse.
“I’m thrilled to be here,” said Levenberg. “I was at Peachtree Middle School working part-time there and one of the other school nurses said that there was an opening at Chamblee High for a full-time school nurse and that it was a great school. So I decided to look into it and I did.”
Tucked away in a clean corner of the front office, she is ready to face each and every ailment that may come her way.
“I’m here from 8:30 to 2:30, Monday through Friday,” she said. “When [students] come in, they should sign in and then let me know how I can help them. I cannot give medication unless I have a doctor’s order, but I can give ice and they can rest here. They can also call their parents from here.”
Originally from Cincinnati, Levenberg describes what she likes about the peach state.
“I’m coming here from Cincinnati, Ohio and I’ve been here for about a year and a half,” she said. “I really like Georgia; I love that it’s light all the time and I love the blooming flower trees. They grow like weeds here. It’s terrific.”
On her choice to become a nurse, Levenberg explained how she wanted to pursue her passion of assisting others.
“I like helping people, I like educating people, and there’s many different areas of nursing you can go into,” she said. “That’s why I went into nursing–and I have never regretted it.”
Before her career as a school nurse, Levenberg worked in a variety of nursing fields.
“I’d not been a school nurse before Peachtree,” she said, “but I’ve been a registered nurse for 45 years. I’ve been a home health nurse, a director of nursing at a facility, and a pediatric nurse.”
Levenberg notes that working with high schoolers is quite different when compared to working with the elderly.
“I worked with the elderly and now I’m working with high schoolers,” she said. “With high schoolers there are different problems, different emotions, and different feelings that people have that you’re working with. This age group is really nice because a lot of you are all getting ready to graduate and go out into the world and it’s fun to be a part of that. I also get to work with the counselors and the teachers. We’re all one happy little group.”
