At Thursday’s New Hanover County agenda review meeting, commissioners unanimously approved restoring funding for a dedicated nurse at every school, starting this year and going forward into future years. The county manager’s office and chief financial officer are now tasked with working out how to find $1.6 million for the additional 14 nurses.
Prior to the Covid pandemic, the county often exceeded the state minimum nursing staffing levels, but never offered a dedicated nurse for each school campus, according to County Manager Chris Coudriet. During the pandemic, commissioners approved the use of federal funding to support more nurses than in previous years.
But the federal funding ran out, and during this year’s budget negotiations, the Board of Commissioners’ Republican majority declined to continue those positions with local funds.
The details of the new nursing plan weren’t revealed until right before the traditional school year started, with parents learning about which schools would be sharing nurses when WHQR reported on it last week. After significant public pushback, commissioners agreed to revisit the issue during this week’s agenda review meeting.
Republican Vice Chair LeAnn Pierce made the motion to reconsider, citing the strong public support for more nurses. Along with Republican Chairman Bill Rivenbark, Piece defended the budget decision, citing the pre-Covid policy, which offered fewer nurses than schools. Pierce said the budget vote hadn’t been a “hurtful thing,” framing it as “not a budget cut” but a return to a previous policy — but ultimately said the commissioners were willing to address the public feedback they’d received.
Rivenbark acknowledged that over the past few years, parents have come to think of the Covid-era policy as the standard.
Democratic board member Stephanie Walker said that her experience on the school board, from 2020 to 2024, had given her insight into the need for dedicated nurses, especially for students with particular medical needs like diabetes or allergies requiring EPI-Pens. She also noted that the state standards weren’t necessarily the ‘best standard.’
The board unanimously agreed to direct staff to find funding for this year and to reinstate one-to-one nursing staffing as the board’s policy for future years.
While the board members made some pretense of the discussion happening spontaneously in real time, the decision had clearly been negotiated and agreed upon beforehand — because mere moments after the vote, press releases went out from both the county and New Hanover County Schools.
Notably, Riverbark’s pre-written statement was slightly out of tune with his comments during the meeting.
In the county’s press release, Rivenbark’s pre-written statement was gracious and grateful for public feedback: “Residents and parents spoke up, and we listened. That’s how government should work, and I want to thank our community for making their voices heard.”
But during the meeting, following the vote, Rivenbark was saltier, turning around in his chair to face the audience and media and saying, “I just wanna say one more thing, and I want all of y’all to hear this, I got probably 150 emails, and the one the stands out is, this lady, I’m not gonna say her name, she said, 'I hope you have kids or grandkids in school, and they don’t have a nurse, and I hope they get sick' — that’s the kind of emails we’ve been getting.”
According to the county, the additional nursing positions will be advertised immediately. Job details, including how to apply, will be available at NHCgov.com/Careers. More information about school-based services, including nursing, is available on the Health and Human Services website.
