District seeks contracted bilingual speech-language pathologist and two nurses; staff explain staffing choices

DeKalb CUSD 428 administrators reported to the board that the district will continue using contractual staffing for hard-to-fill positions and requested authority to add nursing support for two students.

Assistant Director of Student Services Dr. Lisa Becker told trustees the district seeks two additional registered nurses to provide one-to-one nursing for two students — one recently moved into the district and one with a new diagnosis. Becker said those nurses must be present for the students for the full school day (including lunch and recess) and that, when assigned students are absent, nurses can be deployed elsewhere by the health services manager. The nurses are hourly, non-union employees and the district said the positions are budgeted as annual contractual support while the students remain enrolled.

The administration also presented a proposed renewal for a contract with Sunbelt Staffing LLC to provide a bilingual speech-language pathologist. Dr. Becker said the district has used contracted speech-language services in prior years when it could not fill positions with district employees and that in recent years bilingual clinicians in speech-language pathology are in short supply. The proposed contractual cost shown in board materials was $178,200; that amount is a contract cost to the district and is paid to the staffing agency, which in turn pays the clinician.

Becker said the district maintains relationships with multiple staffing agencies and compares hourly rates; bilingual clinicians typically command higher rates because of supply and demand. She also said hiring a DCTA-employed clinician is an option when the district can successfully recruit for a union position, but union pay scales and benefit structures can limit the district’s ability to match contracted hourly rates and retain clinicians who prefer flexible/contracted arrangements.

The board took the staffing items as information and gave consensus to return them for action. Trustees asked for comparative data on prior-year contract rates and asked administration to provide additional detail about how the contractual costs compare with direct hire scenarios and the agency’s hourly rate structure.

Administration said it would follow up with a comparison of last year’s contracted costs and clarify the hourly rates used to compute the $178,200 figure.