Worcester school nurses ratify contract with pay parity with teachers

Will get pay hikes of 10 – 32 percent

After more than three years of negotiation with the city, the registered nurses of the Worcester Public Schools have ratified a new union contract that grants the nurses’ parity with the pay scale of teachers and other professionals in the system—a major issue of concern for school nurses across the commonwealth.
“We are very pleased that the school committee and the mayor have agreed to a contract that recognizes our professional role and the value we bring to the health and education of Worcester’s school children,” said Cathy Watterson, RN and chair of the nurses’ bargaining unit for the Worcester Public Schools. “This contract will provide us with a competitive wage scale that will allow us to recruit and retain the school nursing staff needed to keep children in Worcester healthy and ready to learn.”

The nurses, who are represented by the MNA, had been in negotiations over the new contract for nearly three years. The issue of parity with teachers was the major sticking point in the talks and a major concern for the nurses who have the same level of education and certification requirements as teachers yet have been paid more than 30 percent less than teachers.

The new two-year contract—which covers July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2005—creates a new pay scale for school nurses that mirrors that of the teachers. It will increase pay for nurses at the bottom of the scale by 10 percent and by 32 percent for school nurses who are at the top of the pay scale. Nurses with a master’s degree will also receive an annual stipend of $3,500 per year.

Poor pay and strenuous working conditions for school nurses has led to a shortage of nurses available to cover all of the schools in Worcester, depriving many students of the level of health services they required.

The staffing shortage has been occurring at a time when the student population of Worcester includes large numbers of students with serious health conditions. There are more than 9,000 visits per month to the school nurses’ offices, with more than 2,500 medications distributed. There are more than 2,000 students with asthma; 176 with life-threatening allergies; 76 with diabetes; 255 with seizure disorders; 123 with cardiac conditions; and 1,000 on medications for attention deficit disorder. In addition, another 377 are treated for depression and 806 for behavioral/emotional conditions.

According to the Massachusetts School Nurses Organization, 113 school districts in Massachusetts currently provide school nurses pay parity with teachers—including 49 with some form of parity and 64 with full parity.