Stuart and Dee Smith and their children Allie and Colson enjoy a beach vacation. Dee Smith is Staff Member of the Year at Rainbow Elementary School.

MADISON – The faculty and staff at Rainbow Elementary School selected Dee Smith as the 2016 Staff Member of the Year.

“I am responsible for the nursing care needs for all students at Rainbow,” Smith said. “The teachers and I strive to work together to ensure the safety of all students.”

“Communicating student health concerns effectively with staff members who have a need to know is something I take very seriously,” Smith said.

The component of her work that is most fulfilling is “helping students with chronic illnesses be able to manage their health, be active and able to learn is rewarding. The major challenge of my job is the number of students to one nurse.”

From years as a school nurse, Smith always will remember many of those students. “I grow close to those I see daily throughout the year,” she said. “The special needs students who can’t communicate verbally hold a special place in my heart.”

A registered nurse (RN), Smith earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences in Memphis, Tenn.

Before working at Rainbow, Smith substituted for the nurses in Madison City Schools and worked as a nurse in Madison County for two years. Before school nursing, she worked in a local physician’s office and at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, Tenn.

She and husband Stuart have been married for 27 years. Stuart works as an engineer with The Boeing Company.

Their children are Colson, 23, a graduate of Auburn University and second-year student at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Dental School, and Allie, 20, an Auburn senior studying Spanish education.