Less than a week before St. Agnes School’s Aug. 25 start date, Kevin Ferdinandt received some distressing news: St. Paul Public Schools would not be providing in-person nursing to schools located in the district, including nonpublic schools like St. Agnes that had made the decision, in accordance with state guidelines, to open with in-person instruction.
Ferdinandt, St. Agnes headmaster, said he didn’t learn of this development directly from SPPS, but only when the nurse who had been assigned to his school in accordance with the state’s pupil aid policies informed him that she would not be able to work on-site, “per SPPS mandate that all employees work remotely.”
Other Catholic schools in St. Paul affected by this decision likewise said they did not receive news of it in a timely fashion.
“Having that information come to us one week before we start the school year puts us in a heck of a bind,” said Ferdinandt, who noted that if the school district does not provide health care services to the 785 St. Agnes students who are legally entitled to it, the school will have to rely on volunteers or hire someone else out of pocket.
Ferdinandt has requested that SPPS reverse its decision, writing in an email to Superintendent Joe Gothard and board members that “such a policy does not support the kids whose parents’ taxpayer dollars are supposed to receive services at their nonpublic schools, especially in the era of COVID-19.”
“No matter how you have chosen to interpret the statute governing nonpublic services mandated by the state, I’m quite sure this approach is neither morally defensible nor in the spirit of the law as written, most especially in the current pandemic,” his email continued.
Ferdinandt said that at a later meeting with school district personnel, he requested that the funds allocated for his students be used to provide for an independent health care option that could provide service on-site, but the district said its contract with the employee union would not allow contracting health care out as a separate service.
The SPPS decision mandating employees to work from home, detailed in an Aug. 18 letter from Gothard, also applies to special education services, Title I instruction, and guidance and counseling.
At Nativity of Our Lord Catholic School in St. Paul, Principal Kate Wollan recently learned her school would no longer be able to use Title IV funding to bring to school an approved, independent counselor whom they’ve worked with since January 2018, because it would violate SPPS policy. Like Ferdinandt, Wollan says she learned of this development only when the service, Phoenix Counseling, notified Nativity that staff wouldn’t be able to come on-site. Several other area Catholic schools also use Phoenix Counseling to provide mental health assistance to their students.
Nativity, instead, will have to pay for something state law says the school already is entitled to.
“Our parents are paying taxes,” Wollan said. “They’re paying for these services. But their kids are being denied equitable access to them.”
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