Health Care District will cut Palm Beach County school nurses' pay by nearly $4K
Nurses who care for Palm Beach County schoolchildren will soon face pay cuts of nearly $4,000 as their pay structure is overhauled from a 12-month salary system to a 10-month hourly pay scale.
The Health Care District of Palm Beach County announced the change in a video call with staff members last week. It says the new pay structure "will allow better coordination and alignment between the public schools’ academic year and schedule and the nursing staff’s workdays."
But on average, school nurses will lose about $3,700 per year. Currently, the annual salary range for registered nurses in the school health program is $50,000 to $79,000. The new pay range will be $55,000 to $73,000, and nurses will be eligible for overtime, according to the district.
Nationally, the median annual wage of registered nurses was $81,220 as of May 2022.
The drastic change comes as the organization struggles to employ enough nurses for the job, which is increasingly subject to new rules created by parental rights laws. It's unclear how paying nurses less will help boost hiring and retention for school nurses, who students across the school district visited more than half a million times in the last school year.
The district did not respond to questions about how the lower pay will affect hiring of school nurses. A spokesperson said only that "the change is market competitive and will ensure fairness in compensation for all nursing staff across the Health Care District."
Palm Beach County's Health Care District runs multiple community health clinics, a nursing home in Riviera Beach and Lakeside Medical Center in Belle Glade.
To ease the transition to a 10-month pay scale, the district will pay each nurse a lump sum this summer to cover unworked hours over the summer and pay the employee portion of their health insurance while nurses are not working.
The change is set to go into effect July 30. The 2023-24 school year starts Aug. 10.
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Palm Beach County schools, district approved using lower-level nursing staff last year
The change comes one year after school leaders paved the way for less experienced nursing staff to work on campuses.
In July, school leaders agreed to contribute $3.2 million toward on-campus nursing services each year for the next three years. But due to a "challenging hiring market," the contract allowed certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) to do the work once exclusively done by registered nurses.
School clinics were previously staffed only by registered nurses, who have undergraduate or graduate degrees in nursing and are licensed at a level that allows them to work independently and make decisions about patient care. They can administer oral and IV medications, give immunizations, manage chronic health conditions and make outside referrals for students' medical needs.
A licensed practical nurse, sometimes known as a licensed vocational nurse (LVN) and a certified nursing assistant must be supervised by an RN and have a smaller range of things they are permitted by law to do when working with a patient.
All three are able to give basic first aid, administer COVID-19 tests and recognize symptoms of conditions such as the flu and low blood sugar.
Average pay also sets these careers apart.
In May 2022, the median annual wage of registered nurses was $81,220 compared with LPNs, who earned a median of $54,620 and CNAs, whose wages clocked in at $35,760, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Parental rights laws changed medical care last year at Palm Beach County schools
School nurses are also facing new rules that impact how they interact with students.
Students whose parents did not "opt in" to school medical services last school year were not allowed to be given Band-Aids, ice packs or other minor medical care at Palm Beach County schools. The move was prompted by Florida's Parental Rights in Education law, which went into effect last July.
The law requires schools to notify parents of health-care services and give them the opportunity to consent to, or to decline them, among many other policies that affected life in the classroom this year.
In response, several school districts added an "opt-in" question to their student registration forms, which asked parents to consent to services provided by the school nurse, such as first aid and health screening.
If a child visited the nurse and doesn't have a registration form on file, they cannot receive medical care and the nurse is required to call their parents to the school to pick them up. Parents are not allowed to give consent to medical services over the phone.
If a child is having a medical emergency, district officials said nurses will call 911.
Trips to the school nurse in Palm Beach County schools topped 560,000 in 2021-22 school year
During the 2021-22 school year, 107,843 Palm Beach County students visited their school nurse for a total of more than 560,000 trips, according to data provided by the health care district.
More than one-fifth of those trips, or 112,867, were for medication administration, and about another one-fifth, or 108,209, were for illnesses and injuries. School nurses also perform vision, hearing and scoliosis screenings as outlined by the state.
Nurses provided 130,136 COVID-19 screenings and 13,224 COVID-19 tests on school campuses.
Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work: Subscribe today!
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County school nurses get $3K pay cut amid hiring challenges
