A LARGE CROWD of residents, educators and students criticized a series of proposed budget cuts during the School Committee’s meeting on March 12.

By DAN TOMASELLO

LYNNFIELD — A large crowd of residents, educators and students ripped the School Committee and Interim Superintendent Tom Geary’s plan to cut several positions during a March 12 public hearing on the proposed $30.9 million operating budget for fiscal year 2025.

In the wake of the School Department needing to address increasing enrollment at the elementary schools and rising special education costs, Geary and the School Committee have recommended eliminating seven positions for the 2024-2025 academic year. The public hearing featured 75 people in attendance, and over 20 speakers criticized school officials’ decision to cut Nurse Coordinator Toni Rebelo and Lynnfield High School Library Media Specialist Janice Alpert’s respective positions.

Rebelo said Geary and School Committee Chair Kate DePrizio informed her before February vacation that her job was being eliminated.

“In building next year’s budget, there has been a heavy emphasis for prioritizing and protecting the classroom, which I completely understand and agree with,” said Rebelo. “But I want to stress that the health and safety of our students is an area that should never be compromised and should always be prioritized.”

Rebelo recalled that Geary is recommending that the district go back to the pre-COVID model of having a school nurse be paid a stipend for handling the nurse coordinator’s responsibilities. She said the prior model “doesn’t work.”

“The nurse coordinator role is a student-facing position,” said Rebelo. “Well before COVID, the lead nurse for this district, who had also been a building nurse, had been advocating for years for a separate nurse coordinator role to be added. The dual role had become impossible for her to manage due to rising administrative responsibilities and the increased work demands put on the building nurses due to increased enrollments and the increase in students with special medical needs.”

Rebelo said school nurses treat students’ medical needs such as cardiac conditions, diabetes, life-threatening allergies, respiratory disorders, seizures and more.

“The role of school nursing has changed radically over the years due to increased enrollment and the complex medical conditions of our students,” said Rebelo. “Our students’ medical needs are greater than ever, requiring not only more nursing time but extremely specialized nursing care.”

Rebelo said students are “experiencing more mental health needs than ever.”

“The nurses’ offices are often the first line of intervention for these students as their mental health struggles manifest into physical symptoms ranging from headaches and stomachaches to full-blown mental health crises,” said Rebelo. “The care of these students is extremely time-consuming. The thought of removing a nursing position from our department and moving back to a model that wasn’t effective even under better conditions than present time, in my professional medical opinion, is an enormous mistake.”

Rebelo said the School Department’s nurses are “a skeleton crew of five” that includes one nurse at each school and her.

“There is no other local district that I could find that has only one nurse for every building with no other nursing support, which is being proposed here,” said Rebelo. “Every other district either has a full-time nursing director or they have a lead nurse/building nurse model with an additional nurse working with them in their district.”

DePrizio agreed with Rebelo that the district is “short-staffed” with the number of nurses in the schools. She asked Rebelo about the ideal number of nurses the district needs.

Rebelo said the district should have four nurses, a nurse coordinator and a part-time nurse who would float between all four schools.

Lynnfield Middle School nurse Chris Sheils said the four nurses’ caseloads have increased significantly over the last several years.

“The numbers were quite surprising to us,” said Sheils. “At Huckleberry Hill from 2019-2020, there were a total of 2,497 encounters compared to 2,826 in 2023-2024. That is an increase of 11.6 percent. Summer Street School for 2019-2020 had 2,332 encounters, which has increased to 2,655 in 2023-2024. That is an increase of 12 percent. The high school recorded 1,190 encounters in 2019-2020, and has had 1,480 in 2023-2024. That is an increase of 14.6 percent. As for LMS, the encounter numbers went from 2,515 in 2019-2020 and the last count for 2023-2024 has been 3,386 encounters. This is an increase of 25.7 percent. The increase in the number of visits is staggering, but despite that, the number of nurses per building has not changed.”

Sheils said the number of school nurses working in the district is less than the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s School Health Unit’s recommendations. She said the school system needs to hire a part-time nurse in addition to keeping Rebelo’s job.

“This increase would bring the district into compliance with the recommended levels from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s School Health Unit,” said Sheils.

Sheils agreed with Rebelo that the school system’s prior nurse coordinator model is not in the best interest of students.

“As a senior nurse at that time, I have firsthand experience with that model,” said Sheils “It was only made possible by having a clerk, whose position was cut previously. With the increase in encounters, asking one of our nurses to safely manage their school clinic while performing the duties of a nurse coordinator is an unmanageable ask. I implore you to meet with the nursing team and the nurse coordinator to discuss a reasonable and equitable solution to this concern.”

DePrizio supported Sheils’ request that school officials meet with the nurses and Rebelo.

Main Street resident Diane Courtney, who works as pediatric emergency and trauma nurse, read a letter from Wymon Way resident Coleen Reska that advocated for keeping Rebelo’s job. She said Reska works as a school nurse/lead nurse for North Reading Public Schools.

“I feel that having a nurse coordinator is vital for the health and well-being of the students and staff at Lynnfield Public Schools,” said Courtney while reading Reska’s letter. “I feel it would be a great disservice to the students, staff and community members to cut this position.”

Homestead Road resident Marc Pifko, a family physician who practices in Stoneham and serves as a consultant for Lynnfield Public Schools, urged Geary and the School Committee to keep the nurse coordinator position.

“The amount of time it takes to care for kids in our schools can’t be compared to 10 or 15 years ago, or even before the pandemic,” said Pifko. “There is much more administrative burden, but there is also much more need. It blows my mind that adolescents and young adults have mental health challenges that we simply did not see before. Your school nurses are on the frontline for that. Having a nurse coordinator is really important.”

Librarian cut concerns

In addition to people being concerned about Rebelo’s job being eliminated in FY25, residents and educators continued criticizing school officials’ decision to cut Lynnfield High School Library Media Specialist Janice Alpert’s position.

LHS sophomore Sonia Kumar urged Geary and the School Committee to keep Alpert’s job in the FY25 school budget.

“Ms. Alpert is a resource to students and teachers alike, helping with English assignments, history research projects and technology issues,” said Sonia. “Having a media specialist is so vital to the high school’s environment. Cutting her position would not be conducive to how the school operates. I believe her position is very important and the loss of her in our school would be detrimental.”

LHS senior Isabelle Moschella agreed.

“A classroom is useless without a teacher. A library is useless without a librarian. It’s just a room,” said Isabelle. “Students are not going to spend time looking through the letters and numbers on the sides of books to find what they need. They will just stop reading. They won’t use databases to find information. They will just use ChatGPT. Getting rid of our librarian tells students that literacy and mindful consumption of media is not a priority. I don’t think that is the message you want to send, but that is the one that is going to be received by students.”   

Lynnfield Teachers Association (LTA) President Alex Cellucci said Alpert is an important part of the school system.

“I think there is a misperception that Janice is not teaching because she does not have assigned classes that issue grades as other educators or other media specialists in our district do,” said Cellucci. “Make no mistake, every educator in our district teaches whether there is a grade on a report card or not. I cannot do justice to the ways Janice adds to the core culture at the high school. Janice supports her fellow colleagues and all of the students at LHS in numerous ways. How could the district consider giving up such a valuable asset to our students?”

LHS Science Department Head Scott Gordon concurred with Cellucci’s viewpoint.

“We have seen the teaching faculty at LHS cut to the bone the last four years, and the media center specialist is another teaching position,” said Gordon. “If it wasn’t a vital position, why did we cut two languages at the high school and lose a language teacher, but decided to keep the media center specialist? Why did we cut a math teaching position at the high school, but we kept the media center specialist? We cut a science teacher, but we kept the media center specialist. An English teaching position and a social studies position both got cut, but we kept the media center specialist. The reason why we kept that position at the high school is because it is vital to student learning.”

DePrizio thanked each speaker for raising their concerns about the proposed budget cuts.

A citizens’ petition posted fightforthefirst.org that advocates for saving Alpert’s job received 643 signatures when the Villager went to press on Tuesday morning.