Keeping the campus healthy and safe
Meghan Royal, nurse and safety coordinator at the School for the Talented and Gifted in Pleasant Grove, will tell you she doesn’t like talking about herself. She calls herself a helper, someone who’s more comfortable taking care of others than being in the spotlight. But when she starts talking about her students and her school, it’s clear why she deserves recognition.
National Nurses Day on May 6 recognizes the work nurses perform every day to improve the health and well-being in their communities, and for school nurses, of their schools.
Before she ever stepped into a school clinic, Royal had a very different career. She was a systems analyst—a job she said she enjoyed very much. Still, something kept tugging at her. Healthcare was in her DNA.
“I come from a family of healthcare providers,” Royal explained. “My father and grandfather were both pharmacists—it’s just that sort of family.”
For a while, pharmacy seemed like the obvious path for Royal, but the field was changing.
“It was during a time when pharmacists were moving away from owning their own drugstores,” she said. “It was becoming more of a CVS or Walgreens situation.”
Royal wanted something more personal, more hands-on, so she decided nursing was really the best path, she said. She went back to school at Texas Woman’s University, finished her degree, and started out in psychiatric nursing.
Then life shifted again. Royal became a mom.
“My daughter is the light of my life,” she said. “I realized our time with our children is fleeting. What feels like a regular Tuesday to us is actually a core memory for them.”
The idea that an ordinary Tuesday could become a core memory stayed with Royal. Hospital shifts and summers spent working didn’t fit the kind of presence she wanted to have in her daughter’s life. School nursing did.
When her daughter started kindergarten, Royal moved into a school clinic at Seagoville North Elementary School, working with a team she described as a wonderful group of people and a campus full of little ones.
She loved it—the kids, the community, and the feeling that everyone pulled together for students, she said. But then came COVID-19.
“There was something about that time when all the kids were wearing masks; it felt less personal,” she remembered. “That was the saddest time.”
As her elementary students grew up and moved on, and as her own daughter got older, Royal started to feel like it might be time for a change too. Middle school suddenly didn’t seem so intimidating; it felt like the next step.
A nurse supervisor mentioned an opening at TAG in Pleasant Grove and encouraged Royal to apply. When Royal sent in her résumé, she didn’t expect much right away.
“Forty‑five minutes after my résumé went out, Principal Reymundo Guajardo Cervantes called me,” Royal recalled. “He’s like, ‘We’d love to have you.’”
Although she had never even seen the campus, she had heard all the wonderful things about it. Royal took a leap of faith and accepted. Now, years later, Royal knows she made the right call.
“This is my third year at TAG, and I just absolutely love it. It’s a wonderful place,” she said.
The kids she sees there are high achievers, driven, and often hard on themselves. But their stress doesn’t always look like stress at first.
“You’re going to experience more stress,” Royal said. “A stomachache can easily be a sign of, ‘Oh, I’m so worried about taking this test.’”
Around big exams like STAAR, students go to her office complaining of headaches, nausea, or stomach pain. Sometimes the real need isn’t medicine—it’s a moment to breathe and someone to listen.
“Sometimes it’s not even about nursing,” she explained. “It’s simply about being someone who truly sees them.”
There are days when a student comes in with “a little headache” and ends up sitting with her for 20 minutes, just talking. By the time they leave, they feel better, Royal said. She doesn’t downplay it or make it sound extraordinary, because to her, it’s just part of caring for the kids.
Her care doesn’t stop at the clinic door. Royal is also the school’s safety coordinator. What started with her quietly checking AEDs and Stop the Bleed kits turned into coordinating fire drills, leading safety meetings, and even starting a student safety club. She and her students walk the campus together, looking for loose bars on the playground, issues with the turf, or anything that might put someone at risk.
Their work earned the school Dallas ISD Risk Management’s Safety Eagle Award in 2025 and a monetary incentive.
“I think more schools should participate, as they give out an award every year for campus safety,” she said. “It was really helpful. I used the funds to restock bandages for the clinic and buy raincoats for the staff to wear during arrival and dismissal. We were even able to get extra radios, which are incredibly useful during testing.”
Royal’s success, whatever her title, is based on her belief that relationships are at the core of her work. She greets students in the morning, calls parents often, and wants families to feel their children are known and loved.
“I want them to know I care—that we’re here for their kids,” Royal said.
For Nurse Appreciation Week, Royal expresses her gratitude to the Health Services Department for their constant support and camaraderie.
“We’ve got this. I love that we can call each other and be there for one another,” she said. “Especially during COVID, we really bonded as a team. Health Services is such a great group. We’re blessed to have each other, and I’m very grateful for that.”
