CPS board approves whole agenda: $26 million for temp nurses, charter closures

Anne Uzelac, a self-described 11-year-old Type 1 diabetic, had hoped the Chicago Board of Education might hear her pleas for better nursing care because what's currently in place scares her.

So far this year at STEM Magnet Academy, she's already had seven or eight nurses. Only one actually knew about diabetes care, she said, but his breaks coincide with her lunch, when she needs the most help monitoring her blood sugar. And even once he told her to leave the results of her monitor on a Post-it, she said.

But as usual, school board members voted to do everything presented to them on the fat agenda prepared by CPS administrators.

For nursing, that meant approving up to $26 million in spending through the end of 2021 on up to eight nursing temp agencies, including the one that's struggled since 2015 to provide enough care for CPS students. They offered no public discussion on that deal.

For two existing charter schools, Urban Prep West Campus and Kwame Nkrumah Charter School, it meant signing off on shutting them down for poor performance records. And for three privately-managed charter organizations looking to open new publicly-funded schools, the votes meant denying their applications.

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