HAVERHILL
? Superintendent James Scully assured that the nurse who abandoned an ailing
child for more than an hour during an after-school program has been passed up
from the program.
Scully stated that if the nurse is permitted to do any work in Haverhill schools in the
course of time, she is not allowed to work alone with children, and she must be
supervised by another nurse instead.
The Superintendent also revealed that the after-school-program
are being scrutinized to find out whether anyone else concerned should be
disciplined for falling short in making sure all students were accounted for.
According to Scully, the nurse who neglected the 6-year-old
special needs girl uncared for 2 weeks
ago is a retired city nurse who was working part time for the after-school
Discovery Club program at Golden Hill School.
She was hired on a daily basis and gets $30 an hour, he said.
It?s the school nursing leader who will decide whether her
services are needed in the future, and if ever they do have a need for her
services she must work under the watchful eye of another nurse. According to
Scully, the nurse?s name will not go public until he finishes his review of the
matter.
"Errors like this are avoidable, unnecessary and should not
happen," Scully said. He even said that people have a right to be upset.
Parents send their children to school and they expect their children to be
looked after, a very understandable assumption. People err, but according to
Scully, they should be aware where the children are that go to their schools.
There is no valid reason for not knowing, he added.
Rhonda Lee Booker, a parent, shared that her daughter Laylani
was a participant in the after-school program on Oct. 17. She said her daughter
has learning challenges. Sometime in the afternoon she was hit by a ball and
was sent to the nurse at around 4:30 p.m.
Booker narrated the nurse told her daughter to lie down and that
the child most likely fell asleep. She said her daughter woke up a 6 p.m., and
there is no one in the school that time but a janitor and a substitute
teacher. According to Booker, the
substitute teacher asked her daughter?s name, which the child wrote ?Laylani?
on a piece of paper. Her daughter has difficulty speaking, Booker revealed. The
substitute teacher advised Booker about her daughter and she went to the school
to fetch her and brought her daughter home that night.
The Discovery Club is open until 5 or 5:15 p.m. Among the last
children dropped off in their neighborhoods by the bus, Laylani is one of them,
which made Booker not suspect anything wrong until the substitute teacher
called. Scully said he placed Assistant Superintendent Mary Malone in charge on
investigating about the matter.
Malone reported back to him after she had spoken with Laylani?s
parent as well as the director of the Discovery Club program, Tina Fuller, and
head school nurse Cheryl LeBlanc, Scully said.
Scully mentioned that school nurses are hired by the city, and
that the School Department pays back the city for their services.
Scully suspects other mistakes may have occurred that night as
well and children who participates the Discovery Club programs must be
accounted for before the program concludes for the day. He said he is not even
sure whether attendance was taken that night.
"Any errors and deficiencies that happened within the
Discovery Club are being dealt with and there may be disciplinary actions for
those who did not follow good common-sense procedures and practices,"
Scully said. "The Discovery Club and other programs are now under my
immediate scrutiny. Policies and practices will be adhered to or people in
charge of these programs will be removed."