Federation of Catholic Teachers
OPEIU Local 153 AFL-CIO
New York City Catholic Schools may face the loss of their school nurses.
Please read the following and
ACT NOW!
TO: All Delegates
FROM: Patricia Gabriel, President
DATE: June 4, 2010
RE: School Nurses in NYC
VERY IMPORTANT -- PLEASE POST AND DISCUSS WITH FACULTY
In 2004 many of our schools in NYC were threatened with the loss of their full-time school nurses. Together with the help of OPEIU Local 153, parents, the nurses, and the Archdiocese, we managed to fight that possibility and legislation was passed by the NYC Council that allowed for full-time nurses in all schools with at least 200 students.
We are now facing the same battle. The Department of Health is proposing to raise the threshold number to 300. If that occurs, two-thirds of our schools in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island will be affected. As it stands now, several of our schools are facing the loss of their school nurses in September because their enrollments have slipped to below 200.
To address this issue, Council members James Oddo (Staten Island), Vincent Ignizio (Staten Island), Maria del Carmen Arroyo (Manhattan), Daniel Halloran (Queens), Peter Koo (Queens), and Eric Ulrich (Queens) have introduced Intro 254 which would require that schools with 100 or more students have a full-time nurse.
If you teach in a school in NYC or if you reside in any of the boroughs of NYC, we need your help. It is urgent that you contact the NYC Council member for your school’s district and your own NYC Council member, asking him/her to support Intro 254. If your council member is one of those introducing this language, please be sure to contact him/her with your thanks.
Julia Pignataro and I were present when the Commissioner of the Department of Health testified before the NYC Council Committee of Health and the Committee on Finance on Wednesday, June 2nd. This union will again be present at City Hall on Monday June 7th, where I will testify before the City Council.
As Councilman David Greenfield (Brooklyn) noted while he was questioning DOH Commissioner Farley on June 2nd, changing the number from 200 to 300 students “disproportionately hurts non-public schools, Catholic schools.” He stated that three quarters of Catholic schools will be affected with two-thirds of the students being minority students at or below the poverty level. This change in numbers “then disproportionately affects our poor and minority students.”
Our schools have already been hurt by the discriminatory actions of NYS and the MTA. Our schools are paying a bailout payroll tax for which the public schools are reimbursed. Our schools are not being fully reimbursed for providing mandated services by New York State as is required by law.
Our teachers, our schools provide a great service to this city and this state. We save them millions of dollars each and every year in educating our students. We can not tolerate this discrimination from all fronts – our city and our state.
ACT NOW!!!
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Click here for updated information on Intro 254
Click here for the Legislation Text of Intro 254
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Testimony of Patricia Gabriel, President
The Federation of Catholic Teachers, O.P.E.I.U. Local 153
Public Hearing --Monday, June 7, 2010
My name is Patricia Gabriel and I am the president of the Federation of Catholic Teachers, O.P.E.I.U. Local 153 which represents 3,000 teachers in 188 elementary schools and 19 high schools throughout the Archdiocese of New York. Of these, we represent 2,190 teachers in 24 elementary schools on Staten Island, 37 elementary schools in Manhattan and 55 elementary schools in the Bronx.
Six years ago we fought alongside the Archdiocese, administrators, parents, and nurses to ensure that all of our students would have school nurses in their schools. With the help of the City Council, legislation was passed that provided a nurse to all schools with an enrollment of at least 200 students.
Six years later we are now facing the same fight. Language has been proposed to increase the threshold number to 300. As Councilman David Greenfield so correctly stated at last Wednesday’s hearing, raising this number would affect our Catholic schools disproportionately and also would disproportionately affect the poor and minority students we serve.
Our teachers and our schools do a great job in educating over 39,000 elementary school students in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. We save the state and the city taxpayers almost $600 million each and every year in educating these students and doing it well. And yet our Catholic schools and other independent faith based schools face discrimination from both the state and city governments. The state imposed an MTA bailout payroll tax that is reimbursed to the public schools – not our schools. The state has not reimbursed our schools fully for providing mandated services as required by law. And now, this city is again trying to balance its budget by changing the numbers needed to mandate a full-time nurse in a school to 300 – a move that affects primarily Catholic schools.
Department of Health Commissioner Farley responded to a question from Councilman Greenfield, who asked him for his rationale in changing the number to 300. Commissioner Farley stated that there were budget cuts to make and decisions had to be made “which are the least bad cuts to make.” I guess removing nurses from Catholic schools is the “least bad cut to make.” He also went on to say that there are “other ways to deal with MINOR health problems in schools.” If he means that the teachers in these schools will be the “other ways” to deal with health problems…I have a MAJOR problem with that thinking. Our teachers are professional educators, not professional health care providers. Never should they be relied upon to provide health care to their students.
Catholic school parents have a right to expect their children to have a school nurse in the school when and if their children need medical attention. The health problems faced by students in our schools are not minor. They include severe allergies, asthma, diabetes, sickle cell anemia, childhood cancers, and of course the accidents that may occur in schools and schoolyards. The nurses were on the front line in schools affected by the swine flu outbreak.
I applaud Council members Oddo, Ignizio, Arroyo, Halloran, Koo and Ulrich for introducing Intro 254 which would ensure school nurses in schools with at least 100 students. I implore all of the council members to support this legislation so that all students, no matter the size of their schools, have the same protections under NYC law.
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