Also on today’s menu:
Student Loan Forgiveness For Teachers
AG Seeks Help In Protecting Human Rights
By The Way…
Hospitals and geriatric facilities have had to fill nursing vacancies with more expensive travel nurses. The New Hampshire Hospital Association reports that the state’s 23 acute-care hospitals are spending nearly 130 percent more on contract labor than they did in 2019, helping to drive labor costs from $3.7 billion in 2021 to $4.1 billion in 2022.
To provide help, New England College established a new nursing program in which students spend one-thirds of each school year working as paid licensed nursing assistants for two shifts and one shift working alongside a staff nurse. The student gains real-world experience while participating hospitals gain a nursing assistant who may stay on as a nurse after graduation.
Cheshire Medical Center in Keene has joined Concord Hospital, Catholic Medical Center, and Elliot Hospital in welcoming students in the program. Concord Hospital received its first group of 24 students in May and expects a second group to arrive in January. Angie McPhee-Smith, dean of nursing and health professions at New England College, said the hospital was able to retain 71 percent of the students in LNA positions, which reduced the vacancy rate for those jobs from 23 to 7 percent.
Discussion: The nursing shortage is diminishing the level of care that patients and nursing home residents receive while also serving as a disincentive to staff nurses who find themselves with larger patient numbers and less help in dealing with complicated cases. That leads many to quit the profession, exacerbating the problem. Most travel nurses are competent enough, but they may face different protocols at each facility they serve, weakening their effectiveness while they adjust. Some travel nurses should not even be in the profession, but they are attracted by the high pay and the housing and travel allowances the job offers. This new program holds the promise of a real solution.
Student Loan Forgiveness For Teachers
The Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved Senate Bill 217, which would create a “rural educator incentive program” to make student loan repayment grants available to teachers who work in the 104 school districts in the state that serve rural areas with fewer than 20 students per square mile.
Senator Donovan Fenton (D-Keene) sponsored the bill to provide four years of student loan repayments to teachers taking jobs and remaining in the same school district for four years. The grants would provide $1,500 in the first year, $2,500 in the second year, $3,500 in the third year, and $4,500 in the fourth, for a maximum payout of $12,000.
The full senate will vote on the bill which carries a 4-0 recommendation from the education committee later this year. If approved, it will go on to the Senate Finance Committee for review.
Discussion: Retaining teachers has become a challenge, as outlined in a legislative report citing teacher stress and burnout, student behavior and discipline, school culture, and low salaries. Faced with these issues, fewer and fewer high school graduates are choosing teaching as a profession, in part because of the return on their college investment. The $12,000 in total grants will not wipe out all of the debt most of them will have incurred, but it will help to make jobs in rural districts more attractive as those districts compete with larger school districts the level of pay they offer.
AG Seeks Help In Protecting Human Rights
Attorney-General John M. Formella has announced that his office’s Civil Rights Unit will be adding three new positions, an attorney, a law-enforcement investigator, and a staffer, to provide legal support in its efforts to protect civil rights.
The Civil Rights Unit was established in December 2017 to investigate allegations of criminal, unlawful, or discriminatory conduct motivated by someone’s protected characteristics, including race, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and disability. The unit prosecutes violations of the Civil Rights Act, the state’s anti-discrimination laws, and hate crimes. The Unit also provides training to law enforcement personnel, prosecutors, public officials, and members of the public concerning the issues surrounding hate crimes, civil rights violations, and discrimination.
Until now, the Unit has been staffed by one full-time attorney, with assistance from other units and bureaus within the Attorney-General’s Office on an as-needed and as-available basis. The unit has seen a 465 percent increase in complaints and referrals over the last five years, from 40 to 186, attributable in part to the state’s increasing racial and ethnic diversity, the increase divisive rhetoric in politics and the media, and the increased tension associated with worldwide geopolitical conflict.
Discussion: There is no doubt that civil rights complaints are increasing, and that the AG’s Office needs more help in handling its caseload. One hopes that, with an additional attorney on the staff, the Civil Rights Unit will do a better job of separating free speech from criminal activity. The state continues to appeal court findings that placing a banner on a bridge constituted protected speech, with Formella looking for a criminal conviction. There is enough real hate to address without doubling down on a case that two levels of the judiciary review have dismissed as legal under First Amendment grounds.
By The Way…
Some recent stories that may interest you:
Do you have a story to tell?
The News Café is a virtual meeting place where, each weekday, we discuss the news of the day: local, statewide, national, and international. Subscribers can share their knowledge, thoughts, and questions about any topic, and we may select some of those subjects for more in-depth analysis.
The News Cafe is a reader-supported publication. Although the posts are available to all subscribers at no charge, I appreciate the financial support for the time and resources it takes to do this work. Please consider “upsubscribing” to a paid subscription. Either way, thank you for being here.