By Adam Swift
The potential elimination of health aide positions in the schools was a cause of concern for several people who spoke during last week’s school committee meeting.
As of the meeting, the school department was facing a $2.7 million budget shortfall for Fiscal Year 2027. To help balance the budget, the district is proposing cutting the health aide positions.
However, several students, nurses, caregivers, and the aides themselves highlighted the importance of the health aides during the public speaking portion of the committee meeting.
Several high school students noted that Revere High School health aide Nubia Figueroa provides invaluable services from assisting an overtaxed nurse’s office to acting as a translator for the school’s Spanish speaking students and parents.
“I feel like removing (Figueroa) is a step into a bad system,” said RHS senior class president Kelper Celamy. “She works super hard and steps up to figure out what people need.”
Figueroa said she has been working alongside the nursing staff for four years and that the health aide is a vital position in the school, especially in a community where many students’ families do not speak English as a primary language.
“I serve as a critical communication bridge between students, families, and medical staff,” she said.
Language and translation services are not always immediately available, and Figueroa said rapid translation is critical when there is a potential health emergency.
“I have accompanied students in ambulances to ensure clear communication with students and their families in an emergency,” she said. “I also assist nurses when they are called to an urgent situation.”
In addition, Figueroa said she assists the nurses with mandated health screenings, provides first aid for minor injuries, reports illnesses and injuries and illnesses for follow up, and helps provide guidance and support for students.
RHS nurse Angela Ciccolo advocated for continued funding of the health aide positions.
“They are not supplemental, they are central to maintaining safe and effective care for our students, especially given our staffing challenges,” she said. “At the high school, we currently only have two nurses as our third nurse resigned in February. Due to a lack of applicants, that position has remained unfilled.”
As a result, Ciccolo said fewer licensed professionals are responsible for a large student population with increasingly complex medical needs.
“Approximately 80 to 90 percent of our students are Latino with Spanish as their primary language,” she said. “Communication is not secondary in our work, it is critical to providing safe care. This is where our health aides are indispensable; in my office here at the high school, Nubia provides first aid triage of students, helps coordinate care, and allows the other nurses to focus on the most serious and time-sensitive cases.”
In other business, several parents and school staff advocated for improved Halal lunch options in the schools, noting that a number of Muslim students are faced with limited options and sometimes choose not to eat lunch.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Dianne Kelly said that there are Halal meals offered, but that they are mainly vegetarian meals.
“We do have Halal food on the menu, but it is not Halal meat, and that’s what I think (the community members) are really asking for,” said Kelly.
The superintendent said the administration will follow up with the food services program and see what can be done to address the issue.
“I know that in the past, we did offer Halal meat meals,” said Kelly.
School Committee Vice Chair Jacqueline Monterroso said that with the district’s past food vendor, there was a calendar of kosher and Halal foods that were offered.
“I would love to know what we can do to remedy that situation,” she said.
School committee member John Kingston said he had been contacted by some parents and staff members who said there were some Halal food offerings, but not as many as were available under the previous food vendor.
“Definitely, there has been a cutback and I realize it might be an expense thing, but it is something that we need to get right,” said Kingston.
Mayor Patrick Keefe said he was glad the issue was raised at the school committee meeting so that the district can address it.