School nurse honored for leadership

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Editor

When Rosemary Dolatowski started as a nurse in the 1970s, she worked in cardiac rehabilitation.

She realized something when an unexpected job opening came about in 1986 – in the Burlington Area School District.

While talking with a friend, she realized it would “be nice to prevent heart disease,” rather than treating it.

Now, after close to 30 years in the district, Dolatowski knows she’s had a chance to practice what she learned so long ago – preventative medicine in schools.

She, along with former Burlington High Principal Barb Kopack Hill, received the Distinguished Leadership award May 17 at the annual Phi Delta Kappa Awards banquet at the Racine Marriot Hotel.

The international fraternity of teachers and administrators also honored former BASD Superintendent Jackson Parker with the Phi Delta Service Key for his work with the organization and its mission.

According to the organization, Dolatowski was honored as “effective liaison between families, schools and health professionals in cases of students with severe mental and physical diagnoses. She is highly respected by peer health care professionals who have elected her to positions of leadership in the Wisconsin Association of School Nurses as well as in the National Association of School Nurses.

“In these roles, she had developed programs for the Department of Public Instruction and has served as chair of the policy committee for the National School Nurses’ Association. This special nurse is a true leader of nurses; she knows how to create a culture of caring and excellence among the staff she supervises,” the organization said.

Dolatowski said Parker and former BASD Assistant Superintendent Patricia Hoffman nominated her.

“I think they really valued good health in students,” she said. “They realized the connection between health and education.

“One of my favorite quotes is you cannot educate an unhealthy child, and you cannot keep healthy an uneducated person,” Dolatowski added.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1976 from Indiana University and a Masters in Nursing from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1987.

She was hired by BASD in March 1986 after the former school nurse died.

“I had no one to orient me,” Dolatowski said. When administration at her former hospital speculated whether she would be challenged enough in the new job, she had an answer after a week.

“I said, ‘Follow me around,’” Dolatowski explained, adding that school nurses are working independent with no backup.

“It’s challenging,” she said. “It’s rewarding.”

In addition to her work as a school nurse, she is in her 27th year coaching the BHS girls tennis program, and helped start a staff wellness program within the district.

Profiles on Kopack Hill and Parker, as provided by Phi Beta Kappa:

Barb Kopack Hill

“Her name is virtually synonymous with gifted and talented education in Wisconsin. Her teaching and administrative career in Racine Unified and Burlington (Area School District) has emphasized the coaching and mentoring of prospective leaders as well as the identification and education of gifted and talented students. Not satisfied with a univocal definition of giftedness, she became an ardent student of Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner’s theories of multiple intelligences and creativity.

“Her positive approach to teaching, focused on the assets rather than deficits, has shaped her work in the education of under-achievers as well, and has proved fundamentally valuable in the choice and use of assessment techniques and curriculum reform.”

Jackson Parker

“The Service Key is give by Phi Delta Kappa International to recognize a member who has contributed outstanding service, leadership or research to Phi Delta Kappa and its mission. As the president of PDK Chapter 1123, Dr. Parker has been outdone by no one in the boundless service he gives to the chapter. He has been the program speaker at dinner meetings in the last two years, analyzing and interpreting the PDK Gallup Poll and The Talis, an international survey about teachers’ job satisfaction.

“Working with Dr. Walter Jacobs, Dean of the College of Social Science and Professional Studies at UW-Parkside, he established a professional collaboration of the chapter with the university. In 2014, he was appointed to the advisory board of the university. Besides presiding at board and chapter membership meetings with efficiency and humor, he took up the daunting and time-consuming task of navigating the chapter through new IRS rules for 501.C(6) non-profit status.”