December 1, 2009

WINDHAM TECH'S NURSING PROGRAM GETS BUDGET AX

by HTNP.com Staff

After years of providing affordable training to more than 60 classes of nursing students, Windham Technical High School's licensed practical nursing program will be cut.

The popular program is another victim to the statewide budget reduction plan.

Windham Tech will join nine other technical high school LPN programs across the state in an effort to shave an estimated $1.7 million from a projected $466.5 million budget deficit, Gov. M Jodi Rell announced last week.

There are currently 20 students enrolled in the LPN program at Windham Tech.

“The program allows adults to go to school closer to home and at a reasonable cost,” Windham Tech Principal Kirk Murad said. “Our teachers do a great job and our students are well-respected when they're placed.”

Students at Windham Tech pay $4,850 for tuition for the 16-month program, about 20 percent of the program's overall cost. The remainder of the cost is absorbed by the state.

Murad said 20 nursing students were set to graduate in January and the future of the program was uncertain since he had yet to receive official word on whether the program will end.

According to Jeffrey Beckham, a spokesman for the state Office of Policy and Management, the nursing programs will be “indefinitely suspended” beginning after January graduations.

“It's a difficult cut, they're all difficult at this point,” he said.

There are a number of other nursing programs in the state, Beckham said, and teaching adults was not a part of the core mission for technical high schools.

One local state lawmaker said cutting the program is a small cut that has a huge impact on the lives of those benefiting from the program.

“I don't see where cutting a tech school is going to help,” said state Rep. Susan Johnson, D-Willimantic. “You're hurting people who are using their resources to make a living.”

She fears cuts to a nursing program during a nursing shortage would hurt the economy as well.

“You cut these areas and the economy constricts,” she said.

In poor municipalities like Windham, Johnson said, cutting an affordable education program is detrimental to the local population.

“It's good to have the government be able to pitch in,” she said.

Cutting the local program and thereby forcing aspiring nurses to go elsewhere for training also causes people to move away from the area, hurting the local economy, Johnson said.

The school's close proximity to Windham Community Memorial Hospital was good for Windham's economy as well, she said.

“To cut back on a program when we have a nursing shortage is a terrible thing to do, and it's going to get worse,” Johnson said.

LPNs work under the direction of registered nurses in all aspects of patient care.

The program at Windham Tech includes classroom work, labs and hands-on clinical experience with area health-care providers.

This story includes reports from the Waterbury Republican-American.