Nurses and a parent urge action on staffing and safety; board clarifies drug‑testing practice

At the public‑comment portion of the meeting, Carrie Mirabella, identified as a Middle Country school nurse, told the Board of Education the district is experiencing an ongoing nursing shortage that she said affects daily student care.

"We have had 3 resignations last year, and we are still short of full time float and a full time permanent subs since then," Mirabella said. She told trustees that, because of shortages, the district has sometimes pulled a nurse from a two‑nurse building to cover another absence and that the practice is unsafe.

Mirabella provided counts and examples: she said New York State recommends one nurse per 750 students in a generally healthy population and a different ratio (cited in her remarks as about one nurse to 125 students) when many students require daily nursing interventions. She said the district recorded 22 short‑staffed instances in January (20 school days), 23 in February (15 school days) and 30 short‑staffed days so far in March (18 school days). Mirabella said two days the prior week left an elementary building without any nursing coverage for part of a day and that three of the district's five elementary praise programs for medically fragile students had no nurse coverage.

Mirabella described common medical needs in her building (Center High School): 17 students with epilepsy (nine requiring emergency medication), four type‑1 diabetics, 45 students with epinephrine auto‑injectors and six daily medications, and she said such cases can require rapid care.

Parent and local resident Joseph Gerardi also spoke, raising concerns about on‑campus drug use, vaping and escalating violence. Gerardi said he had heard administrators were actively using the district's new metal‑detector policy at some schools and urged the board to ensure consistent policy application. He also said some administrators had been asking nurses to help evaluate students for suspected intoxication and expressed concern about liability and lack of training for nurses conducting assessments.

Gerardi proposed the district explore partnerships with local nursing schools to provide clinical rotations for student nurses as a workforce pipeline and to increase staffing capacity. "Such partnership offers numerous benefits: increased staffing resources, enhanced quality of care for our students, and the cultivation of a direct recruiting pipeline for future nurses," he said.

In response, a board officer clarified at the meeting that "we don't have our nurses do drug testing," and said the letter to which a speaker referred did not come from the district. The board president invited public‑comment speakers to submit written questions to district staff for followup.

Ending: School staff recommended the board consider staffing investments and clarified operational practice; the district agreed to follow up with the speakers and provide written responses where appropriate.