RSU 1 board keeps Phippsburg nurse at 60% time, orders monthly monitoring and January review

The RSU 1 school board voted June 24 to keep the Phippsburg Elementary nurse at 60 percent time (.6 FTE) and to implement a monthly monitoring plan of health-office visits this fall, then reassess coverage in January.

Board Chair opened the meeting and invited public comment before asking administration for recommendations. Residents from Phippsburg urged the board to restore full nursing coverage; Anthony Gilman told the board that Phippsburg had “showed up” at meetings and warned, “I think it would be pretty awful if the board elected to use that money in another location after Phippsburg had gone through the process you guys have laid out to retain what we want in our small town.” Mandy of Phippsburg said the town’s turnout at a budget vote showed public support for nurse funding: “I really hope that the decision is made to allow these children to have a nurse representation full-time at Phippsburg.”

Patrick, representing district administration, outlined three options: restore full-time nursing, do not use the added funds, or continue a 60% nurse while instituting structured monitoring. He recommended the third option and proposed collecting counts of students visiting the health office during peak windows (8:30–10:00 a.m. and 2:00–3:00 p.m.), recording reasons for visits and actions taken, and providing monthly summaries to the board through the fall to identify patterns that might justify a change in coverage. “This would allow us to closely evaluate patterns and determine whether an adjustment in nursing coverage is warranted,” Patrick said.

Board members questioned how well visit counts would capture non-quantifiable effects such as anxiety or mental-health needs. Administrators and staff noted that other supports — teachers, guidance counselors and social-work services — also serve students, but acknowledged that some impacts are hard to measure with simple visit tallies.

After discussion, a board member moved to keep the Phippsburg nurse at .6 FTE and to reevaluate at the January meeting after reviewing fall data; Megan seconded the motion. Jennifer Rich Smith, a Woolwich RSU1 school member, urged allocation of the additional funds to Phippsburg, saying the presence of a full-time nurse “provides both physical and mental health benefits to students and their families.”

Following brief additional comments about precedent and the district fund balance, the board voted by voice; the chair announced the motion passed. The board directed administrators to implement the monitoring plan and to report monthly during the fall; if the data show an immediate, extreme need, the board said it would revisit staffing sooner than January. The board noted it will not meet in July; the next regular meeting is in August.

The decision keeps the nurse at the 0.6 FTE level previously adopted in the budget process and creates a data-driven path to reconsider hours if patterns in the fall warrant it. The board did not record roll-call vote tallies in the meeting transcript; the chair announced only that the motion passed following a voice vote.