EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — School nurses at Canutillo Independent School District will keep their jobs, at least for the upcoming school year.
The school board decided not to move forward with proposed cuts to its school nursing staff during a meeting on Tuesday, April 22.
The proposal would have replaced several registered nurses (RNs) with licensed vocational nurses (LVNs), who have less medical training and would cost the district less money.
During the meeting, multiple nurses and parents addressed the board directly, expressing concerns about student health and well-being without RNs on campus.
“The decision to remove RNs from our schools is one that I believe will impact my school in a very detrimental way. I work on a campus where many of us students and their families are low-income. I am the primary source of medical care,” said one school nurse during the board meeting.
The board took no action on the proposed cuts, allowing existing school nurses to be offered contracts for the 2025-2026 school year, district officials said.
“We had a lot of parents come forward during the board meeting to advocate for the current system that we have. And that might have played a role in convincing them that having our schools is the way to go,” Gustavo Reveles, spokesperson for Canutillo ISD, said.
Reveles adds that the district originally faced a $5.9 million shortfall but has managed to reduce the deficit to $2.3 million through previous staff cuts and program changes. However, he warns that tougher decisions may be ahead.
“It’s not something we wanted to do. It’s something we were forced to do, you know. Again, the state has refused to properly fund schools since 2019,” he said.
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