Parents warn Mat-Su that cutting school nurses puts children at risk

Parents and staff warned the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District board Wednesday that cutting school nurses puts children at risk, as one of the district's nurses prepares to leave.

The board took no action; the testimony came outside the agenda. The district has proposed cutting nurse positions to help close a $22.5 million deficit.

Stephanie Udy, a Cottonwood Elementary librarian whose daughter has type 1 diabetes, said Teeland Middle School nurse Karen Ingraham is leaving for a job outside the district, and that the school "is suffering a dramatic blow and there is no solid plan" for chronically ill students. A person with type 1 diabetes, she said, makes 180 to 300 health decisions a day.

Ingraham herself asked who would respond to a seizure, an allergic reaction or a diabetic emergency without a nurse in the building. "Reviewing a service and identifying it as a budget line to cut are two very different things," she said, "because the health and safety of our children should not be a safety line."

Speech-language pathologist Mary Dewar said every school needs its own nurse, pointing to students at risk of choking.

There is a temporary reprieve. A one-time $1.69 million grant from the Mat-Su Health Foundation, restricted to nurses, holds the district's nurse-to-school ratio steady for a year. Board member Dee McKee said she wants a committee to study what happens after that.