CPS to spend $26M to address nursing shortage, but plan criticized

LAUREN FITZPATRICK REPORTS,

Plagued by problems finding enough nurses to staff its buildings, Chicago Public Schools is expanding its stable of nursing firms to eight, including one that has sued the school system in the past.

CPS also may continue doing some business with RCM Technologies USA Inc. — the nursing agency it has employed since 2015. The firm has struggled to provide enough nurses for students who need medical care even though federal law requires such services be provided at school.

District officials are asking the Board of Education to approve $26 million for nursing services from Jan. 1 through June 30, 2021. That breaks down to $10 million a year, an increase from the $7.5 million it had authorized to pay RCM annually since July 2015.

Five of the agencies are new to CPS. But it’s not yet clear how much each agency will be paid, or how nurses employed by each one will be chosen.

CPS declined to make anyone available for an interview about the $26 million agenda item that school board members will vote on at Wednesday’s meeting.

Rampant nursing problems in the school district, as documented by the Chicago SunTimes, have required parents to take time off work, or to change jobs to care for their children at school when temp nurses from the agency didn’t show up for assignments or lacked the proper training to care for their kids’ conditions.

After a Sun-Times story about a mother who spent roughly the first month of kindergarten in her son’s classroom because he didn’t have a consistent nurse to help with his feeding tube, CPS announced it was adding 20 more nursing positions and “expanding the pool of nursing vendors to supplement current staffing.” That’s on top of extra positions added over the summer.

So far, eight of the 20 positions have been filled, spokeswoman Emily Bolton said in an email.

CPS seeks “to expand the vendor pool to ensure greater quality and consistency in nursing services across the district,” she said. The school board will vote on whether to authorize all the hiring which “does not necessitate that the district will enter into agreements with all eight vendors,” Bolton said.

But CPS expects to fill 180 to 220 nursing assignments daily, allowing the extra nurses to start working as soon as January even if final contracts aren’t yet signed, Bolton said. Those contracts will determine how many nurses each vendor will provide.

The vendor solution has been opposed by members of the parent group Raise Your Hand, which has been meeting regularly with CPS officials about potential ways to address the problem they researched by studying other Illinois school districts. Initially optimistic, parents who participated in the meetings are holding a press conference Wednesday morning in protest, with parents sharing more troubling stories of temporary nurses caring for their children.

“They conveyed the critical need for continuity and competency of care — not a rotating crop of untrained temp nurses,” Raise Your Hand said in a press release. “Despite their efforts, on Wednesday the CBOE will attempt to solve the nursing problem by tripling down on its failed policy with a $26 million contract for additional nursing temp agencies.”

Coming back to work at CPS are ATC Healthcare Services Inc., and Maxim Healthcare Services, Inc., based in Maryland.

ATC had been paid more than $11 million by CPS since 2006. But the New York-based company was dropped after RCM Health Care Services, a division of RCM, was hired in June 2015 to take over some school nursing services and eventually, all nursing scheduling. The new company promised greater efficiency via unique scheduling software. RCM’s existing four-year, $30 million contract lasts through June 30 and came with options to extend for two additional years.

Right after RCM was hired, ATC sued, accusing the school district of helping the new agency lure away its nurses to work in schools. A federal judge threw out part of the case, but the rest of it still is pending, records show.

Maxim Healthcare Services also had worked for CPS, augmenting services provided by a corps of nurses directly employed by CPS who also are members of the Chicago Teachers Union. Since 2009, Maxim was paid more than $18 million.