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Senate education panel reviews APA study on school nurses, teacher pipeline and administrator turnover
Summary
APA consultants told the Senate Education Committee that Arkansas lags national guidance on school‑nurse staffing and faces teacher pipeline shortfalls; consultants recommended targeted data collection and district interviews to refine Arkansas‑specific policy options.
Justin Silverstein, an APA consultant, told the Senate Education Committee on the consultants’ multi‑part review that the study will focus next on Arkansas‑specific data and stakeholder interviews.
The consultants presented three interrelated staffing issues: school nurses, teacher recruitment and retention, and school administrators. Janie Pistaceli, an APA associate, said national guidance from the National Association of School Nurses recommends a 750:1 student‑to‑nurse ratio for healthy students and lower ratios for higher‑need pupils. She reported that the study found Arkansas at about 918 students per nurse in the comparison set and that states vary widely in whether and how they fund nursing positions.
“Often, the school nurse is the only health care professional that [students] see regularly,” Pistaceli said, urging policymakers to weigh staffing and supply constraints in any policy response.
On teachers, Silverstein summarized national pipeline concerns cited from prior research: a long‑term decline in traditional teacher‑preparation program completions (the consultants cited a historic decline of roughly 80,000 graduates in comparison periods) and high first‑year attrition. He said Arkansas currently shows relatively low rates of teachers leaving the profession — “less than 5 percent” in the available data — but still faces churn: the data used for the study indicate the state will need to fill “a little over 1,500” teaching positions in the coming year given usual turnover patterns.
Committee members pressed the consultants for Arkansas‑specific breakdowns. Senator Joyce Elliott asked whether national results could be masking state differences; Silverstein and Pistaceli said they will use district surveys, the Department of Education’s data and case‑study interviews to produce more local findings, and to pull more current Bureau of Labor Statistics wage comparisons for Arkansas school nurses.
The presentation also flagged administrator turnover. Silverstein said principal turnover and short tenures can raise recruitment costs — estimates cited in the presentation ranged from about $35,000 at the low end to upward of $300,000 to recruit and prepare a new school leader — and highlighted state models (Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts) for principal preparation and induction.
Next steps: consultants said they will return with more Arkansas‑targeted figures (salary breakdowns, subject‑area shortages and updated data) and follow up on members’ requests about mentoring program evidence and the local effects of COVID‑era changes on staffing and service delivery.
