School Nurses To Picket Outside Newton City Hall

NEWTON, MA — As Newton approves trimmed budgets and decreases expectations for revenue amid the coronavirus pandemic, protests about social injustice and protests about flags, the city is facing yet another group of protesters — school nurses.

The union for Newton Public Health Nurses plans to picket outside City Hall from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday in an effort to draw attention to what it said was the City's failure to maintain pay equity with teachers, which it has done since 2014.

The nurses union said the city "reneged" on its commitment to ensure school nurses pay parity with teachers in the system. The nurses said they are protesting what they describe as a "blatant show of disrespect," amid a time when school nurses will be on the front line of ensuring a return to school in the fall is a safe one.

In 2014 the nurses union negotiated a pay scale on par with teachers, social workers, said Sue Riley, RN, a longtime nurse in the Oak Hill Middle School, and chair of the nurses local bargaining unit the Massachusetts Nurses Association in a news release. According to city salary data Riley earned $92,470.88 for calendar year 2019.

“But now Mayor Fuller is proposing that we accept a contract that devalues our pay scale and reneges on the commitment this city made to its nurses and the students we care for," she said in a statement. "And the fact that they are doing this in the midst of this pandemic, when our role and value has never been more apparent, is nothing short of insulting.”

The Newton Public Health department employs 28 school nurses providing comprehensive school health services to 12,641 students, as well as all staff in 22 schools: including 15 elementary schools (K-5), four middle schools (6-8th grade), two high schools (9 – 12) and two alternative high school programs and an integrated preschool program serving 184 students.

Of the 32 people who worked in the city in 2019 and held the title "nurse," the 10 highest paid held multiple certifications and earned between $72,000 and $92,400 for the calendar year. But the next highest paid 10 ranged between $70,000 and $51,000. There were six who earned less than $40,000, but it's unclear if they were part-time.

Nurses administer and monitor a host of medications to students every day, provide health education to students and are on-hand to provide emergency care.

The school nurses, which are part of the Health and Human Services department, have been working under the terms of the last contract since their previous contract expired in June 2019.

Patch reached out to the mayor's office for comment on the claims, but a spokesperson for the mayor only said the city's negotiation team — school nurse salaries are not handled by the School Committee — would be happy to negotiate.

"Traditionally the City doesn’t negotiate during the summer since nurses are on vacation - but the City’s negotiating team is happy to schedule a meeting if the nurses want to set a date," said Ellen Ishkanian, a spokesperson for the mayor's office.

But Riley said the city walked away from the bargaining table.

"We always negotiate into the summer, when we are not working," she said in an email to Patch. "We were told to come back next year."

In the coming months, as the schools prepare to plan to reopen in the fall, and as nurses and other public health experts worry about a potential second wave of the pandemic, the role of school nurses will take on primary importance in this process, providing guidance on how to open schools safely.

"It will be our job to ensure that students and staff understand how to follow safety protocols, how to wear a mask and socially distance. We also anticipate confronting a number of mental health issues that this crisis will exacerbate, and to ensure that students have the support they need to cope with this unique situation," Riley said. "If schools want to open safety, our school nurses will be at the center of that process."

Newton City Employees Calendar Year 2019 earnings:

Read more:

Newton Group Asks City To Cut Police Budget By 10 Percent

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna). Have a press release you'd like posted on the Patch? Here's how to post a press release, a column, event or opinion piece.