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Advisory committee moves to rewrite school nursing policy; hears budget squeeze and staffing shifts
Summary
At its June meeting the Special Education Advisory Committee outlined a plan to rebuild the district nursing policy (last updated 2012), discussed partnerships with medical and research groups to support families, and reviewed staffing and budget pressures that will reshape next year’s special-education placements.
The Special Education Advisory Committee on June 1 voted to begin rebuilding the district’s school nursing policy handbook and heard updates on medical partnerships, staffing retirements and the district budget.
Caitlyn Rean, the committee secretary and a special educator at War Neck, opened the meeting and said the committee will separate Department of Health requirements from school-level practices when drafting a new nursing handbook. Steven Carter, director of student services, said nurses and administrators are working on a new policy book that will be submitted to the school committee for approval. “We’re going to start building a new policy handbook for our nurses,” Carter said, noting the current guidance had not been substantially revised since 2012.
Carter described recent outreach to outside partners intended to expand support for families: he said administrators met with a blood cancer center to share resources with school nurses and with a Brown University study testing home-based exposure therapy for children with anxiety, and that school psychologists have already referred families who might benefit.
Personnel changes and budget realities were front and center. Carter said the district is processing roughly 12 retirements, many of them special educators, and that a union contract and a plan to return certain students to their home schools will require resource shifts across buildings next year. He said the district had sought about a 3.7% budget increase but received roughly 2.6%, and that the mayor and city council asked for a five-year deficit reduction plan. “All hands on deck up here at the administration level,” he said.
Committee members discussed steps to strengthen the advisory body’s operations. Rean and others recommended engaging Ripen (an outside assistance organization) to review the committee’s bylaws and to help define membership, meeting cadence and speaker programming. Members proposed summer working sessions and rotating meeting sites to improve attendance.
The meeting included brief recognitions: members praised the nursing staff for policy work, the new Hawky school secretary (Nadia) for strong communication, and the transition program staff, including Matthew Ki, for supporting student work experiences. The group also noted a new finance director, Rita Diaz, has started and that an assistant director for special education has been chosen but still requires school committee approval.
The committee set tentative plans for August or September for its next regular meeting and discussed recruiting parent volunteers for summer working sessions to help revise bylaws and plan outreach. The meeting adjourned after a short session with no formal motions or votes recorded.
