I Was a School Nurse. What’s Happening to the Education Department Terrifies Me.
Jones: Dismantling the federal agency could leave students with disabilities and other challenges without the support they need.
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For 23 years I worked as a school nurse consultant. I participated in hundreds of meetings with students who were being evaluated for special education services, including health-based accommodations. I joined countless 504 plan and Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings to ensure students’ academic, health and emotional needs were met. I woke up every day with an earnest desire to ensure that children and young people had every opportunity to learn.
Today I sit on the sidelines, but with a heart tilted toward young people.
It seems that every day there is a wave of fresh cuts at federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education. I personally know a reading specialist who will not be able to return to her position next year because of these decisions. The cuts keep coming, and they will affect the education that schools are able to provide.
With each announcement, my stomach churns. Staff layoffs will be debilitating. I am also concerned that the proposed closure of the Education Department will reduce or severely limit access to vital support for students.
As a mother, a retired school nurse, and a woman of faith, I am pleading with elected leaders to invest in children — including our most vulnerable. Investing looks like ensuring that students and educators have what they need to thrive. It looks like maintaining consistent standards for the education of young people.
The Education Department is responsible for ensuring that schools meet the needs of neurodivergent students and those who need extra support to succeed academically. It also holds schools accountable for providing services to students of all ages and abilities. Shuttering the department means not only widening the achievement gap, but pushing children and young people into the cracks.
Our nation cannot thrive if we continue to perpetuate a system in which some students receive a quality education and others do not. Further, any family can find themselves in need of support, whether it’s for their child’s physical, mental or special education needs. Education in America should mean that regardless of where you come from or what you need, you will have an opportunity to have your needs met.
Moreover, if the federal agency is fully dissolved, the responsibilities for mandating services and providing expertise will fall to the states. Every state operates differently, has different priorities and different challenges. Educational services may become wildly inconsistent. Students in Colorado could receive vastly different services than students in, say, Utah.
No essential service —which helps children, families and communities — should exist in a state of uncertainty. When faced with budgetary challenges or limited oversight, I fear that some schools may consider special education services and student accommodations as disposable.
Though I am no longer in schools, I am now the national president of United Women in Faith. Among our many campaigns for justice is a fight against “school pushout.” Pushout occurs through a patchwork of policies that disproportionately funnels children of color, children with disabilities, and students identifying as LGBTQ from the classroom into the criminal justice system.
Currently, it is estimated that the dropout rate for students with disabilities is about 40%, which is twice that of their peers without disabilities. Far too often, students with disabilities are unfairly maligned and funneled into the criminal justice system.
We need a functioning Department of Education to ensure that preventative services and those provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) give children their best chance to succeed and not end up as just another statistic. I, along with my sisters at United Women in Faith, will keep pushing for education justice, but this is not our fight alone. Everyone has a role to play to ensure students get what they need in schools.
Children are our future, and their education shouldn’t be an option or an afterthought.
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Jana Jones is the national president of United Women in Faith, uwfaith.org. She is a registered nurse who worked as a school nurse consultant in Colorado for 23 years prior to retirement, including contracting for four years as a regional nurse specialist for the Colorado Dept of Education.
