St. Louis Public Schools let nurses go; More cuts to come?
Fifteen nurses served their last official day with St. Louis Public Schools Wednesday, remnants of cuts made this summer in an effort to trim $53 million and balance this year’s budget.
But it now looks like the laid-off nurses — 17 positions out of 67 total nurse jobs — will not be the last cuts.
Superintendent Kelvin Adams reported that the district now expects to receive several million dollars less than it originally thought, and will need to take another look at the district’s budget in coming weeks. He said he expected to discuss it in more detail at Thursday’s board meeting.
Meanwhile, union officials and other district advocates worried about the added workload to the 50 nurses left in the district’s 74 schools. The district spent $350 million last year.
Here is an excerpt from the St. Louis Schools Watch newsletter, by district resident and commentator Susan Turk:
… The remaining nursing staff have tried to adjust but have been overwhelmed in light of the H1N1 pandemic. Some schools are seeing as much as 12 to 15% of their student body out sick, others are reported to have higher rates of absentees. Nurses report their offices full of students with fevers, vomiting, and other flu symptoms. Adding this to their regular duties for the many disabled and chronically ill students who are mainstreamed in our schools, the remaining nurses are stretched beyond their limits. Concern has been expressed among some remaining nursing staff that there is a need for a full time nurse in every school building. The current level of staffing cannot ensure a safe and healthy school environment.Aside from evaluating sick children and contacting parents to come pick them up and take them home, nurses are required to assess returning students who have been absent because of illness before they can re-enter their classrooms. In the past, this has been done in person. Now, these evaluations may have to be done over the phone when the nurse is in her other building. As many as three to four children each day are in need of being sent home while another 3-4 return and require evaluation for re-entry into school. Not having the nurse in the building to make these decisions will mean more students and staff exposed to flu and other illnesses.
Contacting parents to come pick up their sick children is a time consuming chore for the nurses. One parent left five phone numbers with the school. None of them were effective. Unable to reach the parent, the nurse had to keep the sick child in her office all day, exposing everyone who entered to her flu symptoms. The nurse sent a note home with the child at the end of the day informing the parent that if she did not stop sending her sick child to school to infect other students and that if she did not provide the school with an effective phone number for reaching her, that she would be reported to the Department of Family Services for child endangerment. The parent contacted the school the next day and provided a working phone number.
Short staffing the nurses during an epidemic is flat out dangerous. The school nurses are the first line of defense for preventing the spread of pathogens. It boggles the mind that the administration would jeopardize the health of students and staff by cutting the nurses at this time. …
Perfect - just in time for Swine Flu season -
Here’s an idea: instead of laying off nurses during a pandemic, cut administrator salaries.
Cut both administrator and teacher salaries and keep the nurses. There are both administrators and teachers who make exorbitant amounts of money. My father was a teacher and never made any money as rich as the salaries that have recently been made public, and he had a Ph.D. when most people didn’t even have a master’s.
What? Lay off one-fifth of your school nurses as H1N1 season hits its stride? HOw is that possible when all of the county-folk and bootheelers told me the State could do a better job of running our schools? Why not let the City pay for them like they do the Parochial Schools?
Cut teacher salaries??!? Are you serious Lisa? If anything we should be paying our teachers MORE. Because you dad was paid poorly, you think it should always be that way — what sense does that make?
EVERY CHILD NEEDS A SCHOOL NURSE in the building! Particularly this year with the influenza pandemic! Administrators should take a pay cut (and cut administrator positions) before cutting school nurse positions. The school nurse may be the only health care professional that city students have access to and now that is gone for some students. ALSO, BRAVO to the city school nurse who threatened to report the parent to DFS for sending an ill child to school and not giving the school correct contact numbers. This is a DAILY occurrence in city and county schools alike. And Ken … most school nurses in Missouri make at least 25% less than teachers and have to take care of EVERYONE IN THE BUILDING (teachers, staff, students, visitor)not just 30 kids. Teachers should try being the nurse someday!
At least there is a demand for nurses at area hospitals. This saves the district money, and the nurses can accept employment at a hospital. Everyone wins. When I was a child, each school did not have a school nurse. There was one that visited several schools. She would come around once in a while and give an eye exam (with the chart), record height and weight, etc. If a child got sick, they sent them home to your parents to decide if you needed to see a medical practitioner.
This is a **really bad** idea, especially during a flu pandemic. I realize the money has to come from somewhere, but this is not the way do to it. My prediction is that someone will get seriously hurt or sick, will not be given appropriate medical treatment (because there will not be a medical professional on site), and the school district will get sued.
Clint, St Louis city school nurses going back to a hospital is not a “win-win”. When you were young and in school, students with severe chronic medical, physical, and emotional problems were not in public schools as they are now. The Individuals with Disabilities Act, No Child Left Behind, and the mainstreaming of students with severe physical, emotional and medical problems has drastically changed the face of school nursing. We are not the school nurses of your childhood anymore. We are highly specialized professional health care practitioners who make independent decisions that can mean life or death for some students. Cutting the school nurses is a “lose-lose”! How long will it be before the administrators find this out?
It’s the school districts responsibility to provide for our children. They must educate them, feed them, and provide medical services. This is a right of every American child, and somebody must pay for it. I don’t blame the teachers, because they are union workers. I don’t blame the superintendent, because he is black. I don’t blame Jay Nixon, because he is a Democrat. And everyone knows the Obama is like a god and is above blame. So it must be those taxpaying citizens who are not working hard enough to make enough money that elevates them into a higher tax bracket in order to contribute to our cause. The Republicans should be ashamed.