ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — The St. Johns County School District is planning to cut back on the number of nurses at each school.
Parents are concerned about how the reduction will impact attention to students' health.
Superintendent Tim Forson said it's the result of budgetary changes. In a letter sent to parents, school nurses urged people to reach out to district leadership about it, saying there's a "possibility there may not be enough nurses to cover each school” soon.
Some parents are alarmed by that idea, but Forson said this is not the truth.
The note says there are currently two nurses at each school, but that will soon be cut back to one nurse.
Chris and Shelby Camposano have two kids attending elementary school in St. Johns County. The couple found out about the changes on social media and they’re not happy about it.
"I hate to think about what could happen,” Shelby said. “Our youngest has seizures. I worry every single day sending her, but now the worry has increased."
Forson said it is true there will only be one nurse per school, but the letter claims that there may not be enough nurses to cover each school and that cutbacks are partially because of the need to build new schools are false.
According to Forson, there will be "floating" nurses to step in when one is sick or on vacation and budgets for health staff and building projects are not interchangeable.
He said federal COVID funding allowed the district to hire more staff, but now those dollars have run out.
"There are a number of areas that we have to kind of get back to where we were pre-COVID, around 2019, 2020,” Forson said. “The impact there is not in relationship to it just being nurses. It is a matter of re-establishing a budget that we can sustain for the next number of years."
He said schools are not mandated to hire nurses, but the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends having one full-time nurse for every 750 students enrolled. That means St. Johns County's largest schools, which have populations of about 2,400 students, should ideally have three nurses.
Parents like the Camposanos wish the district would meet this standard.
"The budget cuts, they're always going to be there, but why would you focus on the area that is the health and safety of the students that go to school? I mean, there's got to be other ways," Chris said.
Forson said this change will go into effect at the start of the next school year.
There is a school board meeting at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 13. First Coast News was told nurses are planning to attend, wearing scrubs "as a show of solidarity."