S.B. 75 Educator Salary Adjustment Eligibility: transcript

Thanks Chair. So, so much for doing that. Um, I do have a seat mate here that will be part of the presentation. Uh, Marie Evans, she'll introduce herself, of course, and, and state who she represents. And as part of that, um, presentation, but the bill's actually very simple. If you look on page two of, of the bill or lines, um, line 41, it adds registered nurse. And what it adds to is the list of eligible. Um, well, I'm gonna read exactly what it is. The, the list of individuals that's eligible for the salary adjustment or auto auto salary adjustment. Um, this list was created some time ago. I can't tell you exactly why the list was created like it is without school nurses that has been lost to the fog of time. We just don't know necessarily. Um, but we know, and when we, and I suspect if you were all, if I were presenting to you right now this idea, and, uh, we, we were debating what should be included in the list. There's no doubt in my mind that nurses would be near the top. Let me read you the list. Um, and I'm, I'm not undermining anyone that's on the list. I just want you to consider registered nurse in the list. A classroom teacher, of course, right? That's a given. Speech pathologist, librarian, uh, preschool teacher, mentor teacher, teacher specialist, teacher leader, uh, guidance counselor, audiologist, psychologist, and social worker. I would think nurses would be at the top of that list. That's my contention to you today, is that nurses should be in that list. Now what does that mean? That means that as, as the, it, it, we put it in code and as the LEAs consider which individuals, um, that should receive that list, they'll look to this code. What does that mean on the back end? As a state, we fund whatever we think is appropriate for the individuals on this list. And that's how the system works. Um, so simple, my employee, employee to add school nurses or registered nurses specifically to the list. That's the my pre part of the presentation. I'm gonna turn the time over to Maria Evans.

Thank you. My name's Marie Evans. Um, it's a pleasure to be here today. This bill's important to me. Um, I've been a registered nurse for 28 years in a variety of settings, but I found my true love about 16 years ago when I became a school nurse for Weber School District. And I am currently the nurse supervisor. And my role includes hiring experienced and qualified registered nurses to serve our students. Um, I've learned in conversations over the years that a lot of people do not understand it exactly what the role of a school nurse is. When they hear the term school nurse. What immediately comes to mind is ice slice and bandaids. And I think that we could all agree here that it's not cost effective to pay a registered nurse simply to put on bandaids or do an occasional ice check. The role of the school nurse involves so much more than that. And so I'd like to hopefully broaden everyone's understanding of what school nurses actually do and why the school nurses should be included in the educator salary adjustment. Um, school nurses play a critical role in keeping students healthy, safe, and ready to learn. There's a famous quote that says, students must be educated, must be healthy, to be educated and educated to be healthy. We know that physical and mental wellbeing are foundations for academic success. And on the flip side, education promotes lifelong wellness. Registered nurses contribute to both of these objectives through the education that they provide in schools. We work with families to ensure that students with complex medical needs can safely attend school and fully access their education. We also teach health promotion lessons in classrooms, everything from handwashing and younger grades to vaping prevention in our secondary school so that students can make informed decisions regarding their health. In Utah, there are nearly 88,000 students that have some type of medical impairment, and many of those students require medical interventions during the school day for them to safely attend school. So the registered nurse works with parents and medical providers to develop individualized healthcare plans. We train school staff and then we follow up and evaluate to ensure that these delegated medical tasks are being performed safely and correctly, and that the student is achieving the desired outcome. Just like other educators, nurses, uh, remove barriers to learning. We participate in IEP 5 0 4 student success team meetings. We help identify students who are struggling. We contribute professional insight to inform accommodations and interventions. We collaborate across disciplines, and that collaboration is key to effective education. No one works in isolation. It takes the whole team to support academic success, and nurses are a vital part of that team. Um, registered nurses are educators. It's written in Utah Code that school nurses provide educational services in public schools. And the purpose of the educator salary adjustment is to attract and re retain highly skilled and dedicated educators. It can be challenging to hire highly skilled nurses because we're competing with hospitals and the private sector that can offer significantly higher pay that makes recruitment and retention very difficult. The work that registered nurses do in schools is varied and complex, and students need qualified and experienced nurses. They're essential educators who help make learning possible, and that is why they should be included in the educator salary adjustment. Thank you. That concludes our presentation. Thanks chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, it's funny how you create a bill with two words and it cost $3 million, but I will point out that this, uh, from the public education appropriations, this was, um, uh, put on our list. It was pretty high up on our list as well. Um, that $3.25 million, um, that was, uh, on the fiscal note here. But I guess I do have a couple of questions. So, um, when it comes to the salary adjustment, um, the eligibility requirements right now, you know, it looks at full-time versus part-time. Um, how many hours right now do nurses typically work in schools? 'cause they don't have classrooms, right? So it's just a, it's a matter of as needed or, or how does that work?

Yeah, so we're invited to teach in classrooms quite often. Last year there were 144,000 students that were taught various health topics by the school nurse. And as far as the hour number of hours that they work, um, each week, it varies from district to district and even from nurse to nurse. In my district, we've got a number that are full-time that work, uh, 40 hour weeks, just like teachers. We have some that are considered 0.8 FTEs that work 32 hours a week. And we have some that are 0.5 that, um, work 20 hours a week. So it just varies depending on what, um, the district has the availability to hire. Um, I will also add that, um, nurses are in my district are on a teacher salary schedule minus this salary adjustment. So we're on the same salary schedule as a teacher. However, we would not be receiving the, I believe it's 10,000 for the salary Adjustment. Yeah. 10,000 for full-time. Um, and then adjusted down based on the hours worked. Right.

Uh, yeah, that I, I think that covers my questions. I was mostly just trying to, uh, identify, um, if, if they have set hours, if they have assigned classrooms or it's just as an on-call or as needed type basis. I think my idea of, of nurses in schools is going back to your original, uh, statement. And I always kind of saw them as part-time figures in schools, but I, I know I haven't been in school for a long time, so perhaps that's changed quite a bit.

Mr, Mr. Chair, if I might Yeah, please go ahead. It's one of the reasons we made the adjustment to be, be specific to registered nurses. There are some that may be have different labels. Now that's not, that was done in an early sub. So what you're looking at is registered nurses, which the idea is to target the most, um, that would be full-time. And of course, as I, as I understand it, as the fiscal analyst looked at this, it was looked, they looked at primarily full-time, uh, full-time positions.

No. Okay. Good afternoon committee. My name is Sarah Jones. I'm with the Utah Education Association. I wanna first of all, thank Senator Musselman for seeing a need that exists in running this legislation. And also thank you to the Public Ed Appropriations Committee for prioritizing this funding. We see this bill as recognizing the important role of registered school nurses in supporting our students in our public schools and creating parity in their compensation. And so we urge you to support this bill. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Shaylee Evans. I'm a fourth grade teacher in Jordan School District, but today I will be representing myself. I would like to voice my support for this bill. This is my third year teaching, and when I decided to become a teacher, it didn't occur to me how many students I would have with chronic medical conditions that would need to be managed at school. In the three years that I have taught, I've worked with students with asthma, severe allergies, diabetes and seizures. During my first year in the classroom, student health concerns were very intimidating to me. I did not go to school to be a nurse and I didn't know how to manage these medical issues on my own. With teaching 30 other students in the classroom, I soon learned the value of having a school nurse. The training and health plans they provide are a huge support to me. If I have a student with medical problems, I'm not just crossing my fingers and hoping I'll know what to do. I have a clear written plan to follow and I have support. Our school nurse is a very important part of our team. She takes care of student health, so I can focus on the teaching. Thank you.

There's not. Um, I'd like to make a motion to pass out SB 75 with a f favorable recommendation from this committee.

Just very briefly? We did highly prioritize this in the Public Education Appropriations Committee. Um, obviously if it's not funded, then this won't pass anyway. Um, but I do think it's good policy and we should adopt it.

Thank you for coming today. Am I, am I on? Yep. Oh, very good. The light's not on down here. I have, uh, Mr. Chair, if it, if it pleases you, I want to introduce my chair mate here. Um, Marie Evans, she's a school nurse supervisor with the school district, and happens to be my constituent. Um, very good. We'll talk about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's a good thing. She thinks it's an okay thing, I suppose. Um, nonetheless, uh, she brought to my attention, um, maybe what could have been, and quite possibly was an, an error. Um, but we can leave that to history and the, and the, and the fog of history. Nonetheless, what we have before us is a, is a list. And if you look at my, the bill, there's a list of, um, license issues of the state board and positions as a, and this goes to the, well let me read further, as used in this section, educator means the person employed by the school district, charter school, regional Education Service Agency, or the Utah Schools of Death. I'm blind, who holds a license issued by the state and board. And then it lists, uh, uh, and I, I know you can read this, but I'm gonna read it anyway, classroom teacher speech, uh, pathologist, librarian or media specialist, preschool teacher, mentor teacher, teacher specialist, or teacher leader, guidance counselor. And I want you to listen to these last ones. Close, the audiologist, psychologist, soc and social worker. And then, um, uh, oh, no social workers, uh, clearly stated. And then it's, it ends without leaving or adding school nurse. And my contention is that that should have been done in the first place. That's what this bill does. Now, I'm gonna let her speak as part of my presentation, if that's okay with the chair. Sure. But I'm gonna point out and address one, one point. We do have an amendment on the line online, and I want to move that, or have somebody on this committee move that amendment. It would add specifically for it to be registered nurses. And that does a couple things that specifically, oh, hey, Kathy. Oh yeah, that was my intern last year, right there. That was a weird moment. Um, uh, nevertheless, uh, we think it, first of all, it's appropriately titled to be Registered nurse. But secondly, I, I get, we're gonna be looking at the fiscal note. And the fiscal note, we think took in nurses in general and not registered nurse specifically. We think that fiscal note will be reduced, we think drastically. And I want the, I want the, the, the committee consider that as we continue to talk about this, and we'll, we can dig into that a little bit. But with that, I'm gonna turn some time over to her and to kind of, uh,

Go ahead. Oh, yeah, yeah. That'd Senator Vickers Be great. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, yeah, I move that we, uh, and I can't see it in front of me, but the amendment number one, I assume under, uh, Senator Musselman's name. Uh, just a motion.

Um, I just wanna make sure I'm clarifying what we're doing here. This is adding them to the list of educated salary adjustment. Right. So if the case that wasn't perfectly clear, but I wanna read the line below where we'd add registered nurse In recognition of the need to attract, attract, and retain highly skilled and educated educators, the laser shall annually appropriate money for educators salary adjustments.

Thank you. Um, I'm grateful to be here today to be able to share a few of my thoughts.

My name is Marie Evans. Okay. Um, I'd like to share a few of my thoughts to maybe help broaden the understanding of the role of a school nurse. Um, I just wanna start by thanking Senator Musselman and the UEA for recognizing the critical role that registered nurses do play in schools. Um, this bill's important to me. I've been a registered nurse for 28 years, with 16 of those years as a school nurse in Weber School district. I am currently the nurse supervisor, and my role includes hiring experienced and qualified registered nurses to serve our students. School nurses play a critical role in keeping students healthy, safe, and ready to learn. Many people mistakenly believe that the role of a school nurse simply consists of ice lice and bandaids. Um, while we definitely can help with those things, I can assure you that school districts are not paying registered nurses to put on a bandaid. Our role encompasses much more than that. There's a famous quote that says, students must be healthy to be educated and educated to be healthy. We know that physical and mental wellbeing are foundations for academic success. And on the flip side of that, education promotes lifelong wellness. School nurses contribute to both of these objectives. We work with families to ensure that students with medical needs can safely attend school and fully access their education. We also teach health promotion lessons in classrooms, everything from hand washing to vaping prevention to empower students to make informed decisions regarding their health. In Utah, there are nearly 88,000 students that have some type of medical impairment. Many of those students require medical interventions during the school day for them to safely attend school. The registered nurse works with parents and medical providers to write individualized healthcare plans, train school staff, and then follow up and evaluate to ensure that the medical interventions are being done correctly and that the student is achieving the desired outcome. If the purpose of the educators salary adjustment is to attract and retain highly skilled and dedicated educators, um, we recognize that's important for nurses as well to have highly skilled, uh, qualified nurses in our schools. There are, as Senator Musselman said, there's various groups of educators that are included in this salary adjustment. But the one group that's conspicuously missing is nurses. It can be challenging to hire highly skilled nurses because we're competing with hospitals that can offer significantly higher pay. Um, registered nurses are educators. Uh, Utah Code 50 3G dash nine dash 2 0 4 recognizes that school nurses provide educational services in public schools. We are the only qualified professionals who can write individual individualized healthcare plans, deliver the required training and delegate care in schools. We teach students directly in the classroom and in the health office. Our role is central to student safety and learning, and that is why Reg registered nurses should be included in the educators salary adjustment and recognized for their vital role on the school team. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That concludes our presentation.

My name's Terry McCabe, and I'm from the Provost School Board. I was originally elected to the school board in 2020 during COVID and as a healthcare professional, one of the first things I did was help do all the COVID testing for athletes at six o'clock Monday mornings. And, and this, the state legislature at the time did provide bonuses for teachers and everybody except for school nurses. And because I got to work with them very closely at six o'clock in the morning, um, I saw the all their hard work, and I, our school district ended up having to carve out extra money out of our budget to give them the bonus that everybody else got. So I'm really grateful that this is finally happening.

Good Afternoon committee. I'm Sarah Jones with the Utah Education Association. I just wanna express my appreciation to Senator Musselman for being so responsive when he heard a concern from school employees in his district and recognizing the lack of parity for registered school, school registered nurses across the state. And we hope that you will support this legislation. Thank you.

All right. Can you see and hear me? Yes. Go ahead. If I do this. Awesome. Um, I am a school social worker, um, represent the school, Utah School Social Worker Association. I just wanna show my appreciation to school nurses and they're vital part of our team. That's all I gotta say.

Uh, I want to, can I sum first?

You. I move that we favorably recommend SB 75, SB 75 as amended, or was it a substitute? It was just amended, right? It Was amended. Okay. So as amended then? Right. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, thank you for running this bill. This is very important. The, uh, national average for a student to nurse ratio is one to 750 kids. That's what the average recommended, um, ratio is in the state of Utah. It's one nurse for every 2,700 to 2,800 kids. I, I personally have been working on trying to get more nurses in school since I was on the state school board. And so thank you for running this bill. It's super, it's important for our kids to have someone that they can rely on to help them with their medical needs. So thank you. I, I, I have, I I have one question that I, I I'm not sure about, and maybe you could address it in your sum. Is there anything in this bill that actually, uh, mandates that, uh, there's an increase in a requirement of having nurses in schools?

Mr. Chair? No. There. Okay.

Sorry. I, I wanna tell the story.

So the, the, the nice nurse that came up and spoke, my son was an athlete too during COVID. Um, in, in his mind, uh, um, positive was good. And so he Uintah a wrestling tournament and came back and took the golden nurse, gave him a test, and she brought him outta class, or he got sent to the office because he coughed in class. And he went down there and they tested him, and he came back positive. And she says, son, I have to tell you you're positive. And, and he says, oh, that's good. Right? Of course, the school nurse had to explain in, in her sweet manner and did so to let him know he is gonna have to go home and spend two weeks at home in the basement and get fed with a stick. No, I'm just kidding. We didn't, we didn't do that. Um, I do want to, I do want to just, um, sum real quick in the idea that this is, this is, this is how good legislation I think can take place where a constituent reach out to a, a legislator in their district and, and says, Hey, I think there's an issue and this is how I'd like to resolve it. And the legislator looks at it and good faith and looks at it and says, yeah, I think there is a hole there, and I think we can fix it. Now there's other hurdles that we have to go through, certainly, but I appreciate the committee's time to, uh, listen to me and the chair. Good chair's, uh, willingness to, uh, schedule it on your agenda. So with that, I'll submit your will.

I'll waive.

Uh, I would move that, uh, SP 75 educator salary adjustment eligibility. Be read for a third Time. Thank you. And the question is,

Thank you. Thank You Mr. Present. Uh, motion to encircle HB 69 Drinking water restructuring amendments. We have a motion to encircle, gimme the bill number again if you can house Bill 69 House bill 69. First, first substitute. The motion is ENC circle first substitute House bill 69. Drinking water restructuring amendments.

Thank you Mr. President House Bill 69. Uh, as substituted deals with challenges that occur with,

Senator Musselman, Mr. President, I've, I've gave an impassioned speech as to why registered nurse would be included in the list. I I don't think it's necessary to re rehash that argument. That's, this bill is simple. It's adding registered nurse to the, to the list of, uh, individuals that would qualify for the, um, educator salary adjustment. That's what the bill does. Simple as that. Um, I'll answer any questions. Thank you. Say no questions back to you for, for a motion or any summation. Uh, call the question, Mr. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. President. Motion. UNC circle First substitute house bill 21.