School Nurse Jobs Under Budget Ax : Finances: More than a third of all nurses in the San Diego city schools might be let go after June 30 as the board looks for ways to meet an expected $37-million budget shortfall.

Refusing to declare health care a vital--if not always welcomed--obligation of San Diego city public schools, trustees Tuesday voted 4 to 1 to issue notices of possible layoffs to more than a third of all school nurses.

Not even heart-rending stories of students having serious illnesses prevented or caught in time by nurses serving as the pupils’ only source of care could sway a majority of board members from giving Supt. Tom Payzant what he called the flexibility necessary to deal with an estimated $37-million budget shortfall.

Only new trustee John De Beck voted no, saying that, by putting 55 nurses on notice that they could lose their jobs after June 30, trustees were being inconsistent with Payzant’s desire to keep educational cuts as far from the “direct classroom” as possible.

“The cuts should be as far from kids as possible,” De Beck said to loud, sustained applause from nurses, students and community medical workers who packed the district meeting Tuesday to argue against any layoff notices. De Beck argued that health care is important enough for the board to say--ahead of general budget deliberations--that it should not be slashed by a potential $3 million.

De Beck’s colleagues commiserated over their action but said that legal requirements dovetailed with Payzant’s request for flexibility to make their vote necesssary.

Under state law, the district must notify nurses by March 15 in order to lay them off at the end of the fiscal year should the district be short of sufficient funding. Most of the nurses do not have teaching certificates. Those that do could be moved to classroom teaching jobs if their medical job were eliminated.

But Payzant and other trustees, although warning that there could well be actual nursing layoffs, insisted Tuesday that there will be no final decision until after a complete review of all district programs and departments by the end of next month.

“We’re not in a position yet to establish total priorities,” assistant Supt. Frank Till, who oversees the health services department, said. “We have to look at all the options.”

Trustee Susan Davis, a longtime advocate for school-health clinics and other innovative human care programs in schools, said she felt “frustrated” but echoed Payzant’s emphasis on preserving budget flexibility. The district must cut $37 million, the amount between expected income and the almost $600 million needed to maintain all existing classroom and administrative services next year.

Board president Shirley Weber said the “vote is not a vote to actually lay off, but just to take necessary precautions.” Trustees also voted at the same time to issue layoff notices to 18 counselors, including all special career counselors who advise high-school students about jobs and those who work with problem students about to drop out of school.

Weber said she doesn’t know how she will balance nursing cuts later this spring with expected proposals to cut “music programs, sports . . . and maintenance” among a host of other programs. “I don’t know where nurses will stand versus cuts on other things.”

Weber’s comments left many nurses with a sour taste after the vote. “How can she equate what we do with music or sports?” said Yvonne Evans, a nurse-practitioner at Lincoln High School. “What we do (can be) a matter of life and death.”

During the often impassioned public pleas ahead of the vote, Lincoln student Reggie Sibley credited Evans with saving him from serious injury from a pulled rib tendon while playing football last fall. The team trainer had told him to put hot water on the the sore area, but, after the pain continued for several days, he went to see Evans.

“She told me that what the trainer had told me was wrong,” Sibley said. “And afterwards, she was at every one of our games” to make sure things were done properly.