Rutherford County School Board reverses decision to cut pay for new school nurses

RUTHERFORD COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — Rutherford County School Board is backtracking on its plan to lower salaries for new school nurses.

FOX 17 News first reported last year on the situation when the board voted to reduce the salary for new nurses, despite pleas from staff members against it.

The idea last year was to lower the salary for new hires and bring on added staff with lower qualifications.

Those less-qualified LPNs would work under the guidance of Registered Nurses to help with heavy workload.

School leaders say they were able to bring in a handful of Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN) that have helped, but the negative impact to staffing challenges outweighs the money they were saving on the lower pay scale.

The district health supervisor says the decision not only hurt morale among staff, but resulted in unprecedented turnover rates.

Supervisor Sarah Winters told the board last week, 14 school nurses left this year, about 25 percent of her 55-nurse staff.

“We had people literally waiting for positions and we don’t have that now,” Winters said.

Board members now say they want to change course.

The board voted unanimously to go back to the old pay scale, which matches nurse salary to teacher salary based on experience.

“What we had done was not as beneficial as we had hoped for and there was no savings data provided to make it make sense for me,” Board Chair Tiffany Johnson said.

Johnson voted in favor of the changes last year, but says the new information convinced her to change it back.

“In hindsight, I’m thankful that we were at able to add additional support to our nursing staff. I wish we would have had more information and more clarity before we would made the decision,” she said.

Winters says the pay changes were not the only reason why staff members chose to leave this school year. Some left because of stress brought on in the pandemic.

But she says it was definitely a big factor for some of her employees.

The salary changes will go into effect in July.

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