Source: HudsonReporter.com
The North Bergen Board of Commissioners has approved a resolution to negotiate a shared services agreement with the township’s Board of Education to provide nursing services.
Under the agreement, nurses from the township’s Department of Health would address the school system’s need. The shared services agreement would run for the current year until June 30, 2022. Following that, the agreement could be renewed on a yearly basis from July 1 to June 30 of each year. That is, of course, subject to joint approval from both the Board of Commissioners and the Board of Education.
The school board would reimburse the township on an hourly basis. However, that rate is not yet worked out yet as the resolution does not approve the agreement. The resolution only authorized the Township Administrator and Special Counsel to negotiate the shared services agreement.
The efforts to supplement the number of nurses in the district comes at a time when the township has been looking to vaccinate eligible youth against COVID-19.
Township Administrator Janet Castro told the Hudson Reporter that this was seeking to address a local shortage of nurses in the school district. “We’re using the Health Department team actually,” Castro said. “We’re in the process of coordinating those clinics with the schools. The efforts to supplement the number of nurses coincides with the efforts to vaccinate eligible students. It’s all part of the same effort,” she said.
“We will be scheduling COVID vaccines for student ages 5 to 11 in our schools,” said Superintendent of Schools Dr. George Solter. “We are working with the North Bergen Department of Health to provide these shots.”
The township regularly offers vaccines out of the Vaccine and Resource Center at 9243 Kennedy Boulevard. The site is owned by a private entity, but has agreed to work with the township to help provide vaccines to eligible residents.
“We have gone into an agreement with the entity,” Castro said. “We are utilizing that site as a vaccine and resource center. It’s a satellite site.”
The Recreation Center has longer a hub for vaccinations as of August. Castro said that the rec center was optimal at first, as there were no recreation programs going on at the time, but that is no longer the case.
In addition to that satellite site, there are many mobile vaccination clinics that have taken place and continue to across the township, according to Castro. “We were at Winterfest, Parent’s Night. It’s much more than just at the center.”
As of Nov. 30, 81 percent of North Bergen adults were fully vaccinated and 92 percent had received at least one dose.
For more information, go to NorthBergenVaccine.org.