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District nurses warn board that eliminating a school nurse post would jeopardize student safety
Summary
Nurses and preschool health staff at the May 18 Collingswood Board of Education meeting urged the district not to eliminate a nursing position, saying existing coverage already requires nurses to split time across buildings and describing specific medical needs and visit counts that, they said, create safety risk.
At the May 18 Collingswood Board of Education meeting, multiple school nurses told the board that the district's decision not to refill a recently vacated nurse position would place students at risk and increase strain on remaining staff.
"In an emergency, seconds matter and found a nurse in every building, we are placing our students at undue risk," said Alex Gonzales, a certified school nurse at Zane North, describing daily medication rounds and intensive caseloads. Gonzales said she manages scheduled medication times throughout the day and cares for students who use G-tubes, require seizure rescue medication and have other complex medical needs. Gonzales provided year-to-date visit totals for buildings across the district (Zane: 4,175; CHS: 7,304; CMS: 7,223; Tatum: 5,282; Sharp: 2,094; Newby: 1,234; Garfield: 916) and said Newby and Garfield have shared a single nurse for two years.
A second nurse who identified herself as the district's preschool nurse described similar coverage strains and said nurses are routinely pulled from assigned buildings to cover multiple sites when substitutes are unavailable. "When one nurse is expected to cover multiple buildings, student safety suffers," she said.
Speakers emphasized that the role of school nurses extends far beyond bandages: they monitor chronic conditions, administer medications, help manage mental-health crises, conduct case management, maintain accurate medical records and coordinate emergency response. Nurses and other commenters urged the administration to reconsider eliminating the Tatum nurse slot and to prioritize hiring substitutes and a full-time nurse to maintain one-nurse-per-building coverage.
The board heard related public comments about security staffing and layoff impacts later in the public comment period, when a female security officer and community members linked reductions in staff to diminished student supports and to the loss of trusted adults who can respond in gender-sensitive situations.
The superintendent's report and business-administrator items followed public comment; board members did not take an immediate roll-call action to restore the nursing position during the meeting. Several speakers asked the administration to provide clearer follow-up on nurse coverage plans and substitute staffing. The board did not adopt a formal resolution on the nursing staffing question during the session.
Next steps: Nurses asked the board to publicly clarify whether the Tatum nurse vacancy will be refilled and to report back with a staffing plan; the administration said it would take questions and follow up after the meeting.
