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Contract negotiations between the Washington Teachers’ Union (WTU) and D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) have touched on a bevy of issues, but none more frequently than school safety.
It’s a particularly crucial subject for 14 DCPS athletic trainers who are overextended by their obligations to a student-athlete population that has tripled in the past 32 years. Failing to hire more athletic trainers, WTU collective bargaining team members say, poses dangerous, and even potentially deadly, consequences for student-athletes.
Even so, the collective bargaining team has had little success in negotiating an expansion of the athletic trainer workforce. A DCPS employee who’s familiar with the contract negotiations told The Informer that DCPS, via the Office of Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining, keeps citing D.C. Code § 1–617.08 in their refusal to negotiate this matter.
“This is nothing new. When DCPS added middle school sports in School Year 2004-2005, athletic trainers asked for more staff,” said the staff member who requested anonymity. “Nothing has been done and we don’t know why.”
According to Section 2 of D.C. Code § 1–617.08, managers retain the right to “hire, promote, transfer, assign, and retain employees in positions” with an agency.
On Feb. 29, the WTU and DCPS met at the American Federation of Teachers headquarters in Northwest for the second time since the WTU’s contract expired in September. DCPS Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee, for the second time, wasn’t present for the meeting, which took place at 5:00 AM, a couple of hours before teachers were expected to report to class.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) and Julia Hudson, D.C. Council member Anita Bonds’ chief of staff, joined the meeting. Mendelson would later tell The Informer that DCPS is preventing negotiations from wrapping up before March 20, when D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) is expected to present her budget proposal to the D.C. Council.
For decades, multiple DCPS athletic directors have hit a brick wall in their attempts to obtain more athletic trainers. The DCPS staff member said that the WTU appears to be experiencing a similar phenomenon.
“With the current staffing shortage, it’s impossible to provide the level of comprehensive healthcare that athletic trainers are trained to provide,” the staff member said. “It has become dangerous and DCPS is one catastrophic injury away from asking themselves why an athletic trainer was not present.”
During the earlier part of February, Council members Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) and Christina Henderson (I-At large) introduced the Public School Health Services Amendment Act.
If passed, this legislation would require all District public and public charter schools to provide nursing coverage, regardless of whether or not they participate in DC Health’s School Health Services Program. In his Feb. 2 letter to D.C. Council Secretary Nyasha Smith, Parker said that a nursing shortage has compelled DC Health to transition to a cluster model where registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and other health technicians provide coverage for multiple schools at a time.
Meanwhile, DCPS staff members who are familiar with the situation say that DCPS is currently searching for a 15th athletic trainer. It would be the first time the workforce within the school system increased since 1991, when the program launched.
In a statement, DCPS said that it couldn’t yet confirm the number of athletic trainers allocated for next school year.
A spokesperson said that DCPS’ athletic department has been able to safely support athletic programming with a number of full-time certified athletic trainers that “often exceeds the number of full-time certified athletic trainers in competing school districts.” In the absence of athletic trainers, DCPS coaches who are trained in heat acclimatization, concussion and First Aid/AED/CPR training serve as the first line of defense, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said that coaches are trained to activate an emergency action plan that includes contacting an athletic trainer and local emergency medical services. They told The Informer that athletic trainers discuss these matters with coaches and athletic directors in August and during seasonal athletic director meetings.
Life as an Athletic Trainer in DCPS
At its inception, DCPS’ athletic trainer program was a national pioneer in school sports. For decades, athletic trainers supervised games, provided medical services to high school student-athletes, crafted emergency action plans, screened participation documents, and provided daily patient care.
They also helped families secure healthcare resources, including but not limited to dental care, mental health resources, housing and food support.
People who serve this role have to meet qualifications set by the Board of Certification, Inc., including the attainment of a masters degree, passing a national board exam, and the accumulation of continuing education credits every two years.
Even with that, athletic trainers didn’t receive a substantial pay increase until 2007, when they successfully lobbied to become part of the WTU.
That inclusion led to a salary increase of more than 10% that was on par with what classroom teachers received. As Jennifer Rheeling told The Informer, it also set the stage for an ongoing battle with administration about overtime pay, scheduling and workload.
Rheeling, one of DCPS’ first athletic trainers, retired in October after 33 years on the job. She started at the now-shuttered Spingarn High School in Northeast before transferring to H.D. Woodson High School, also in Northeast, at the turn of the century.
While at Woodson, Rheeling became responsible, not only for Woodson student-athletes, but those at other District public schools. At the time of her retirement, Rheeling’s caseload included student-athletes from Woodson, Bard High School Early College DC, Kelly Miller Middle School, John Philip Sousa Middle School, and several elementary schools.
She said that her colleagues in the school system had similar arrangements.
Rheeling told The Informer that, with more than one school on their caseload, athletic trainers spend most of their time screening participation documents and covering events. She said that, in an athletic trainer’s absence, non-medical personnel are left to respond to emergencies.
Traveling between games and completing mountains of paperwork from different schools, Rheeling said, took time away from what she called the more impactful parts of her job, including patient care and communication with parents, doctors and insurance companies.
In making her point, she cited a study she and other athletic trainers conducted. She said the findings showed that athletic trainers spend more than 80% of their time conducting administrative tasks and attending events. Meanwhile, they spend less than 20% executing tasks directly related to student-athlete wellbeing.
These days, Rheeling serves as an athletic trainer at KIPP College Preparatory Public Charter School in Northeast. In that role, she’s responsible only for one high school athletic program. She told The Informer that she also has an opportunity to craft policy that aligns with best practices and evidence-based research.
Rheeling said there’s no greater feeling than knowing that she can leverage her expertise without pushback.
She recounted an instance when a coach at Woodson yelled at her after she inquired about the misappropriation of ice prior to a football game taking place in high temperatures. She later noted that administrators didn’t support her after the incident.
“There’s a shortage of people who want to work in school settings because of pay, hours and generally respect,” Rheeling said. “DCPS has a competitive salary for athletic trainers, and you can’t always fix the hours associated with [the job], but the lack of respect and administrative support is exhausting. Not having time to meet the needs of your student-athletes at the level they deserve is exhausting.”
To DCPS: Comparing yourself to other districts that also do not have appropriate healthcare for student athletes is looking in the wrong direction. You should be looking forward to best practices in the industry and meeting those objectives. The staff member in the article said it best “ DCPS is one catastrophic injury away from asking themselves why an Athletic Trainer wasn’t present” The reporter should do a follow up article on the health and safety of DCPS football because Coaches that take a one hour course on heat and concussions are not a substitute for an allied healthcare professional with an advanced degree. Do better DCPS, this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
And other districts don’t have middle school football!!! is this the best you can do DCPS??? these middle school football players are out at practice in August in 100° heat with a coach who took a one hour class on heat. Ridiculous. didn’t they learn anything with Jordan McNair!
how about having to call your school’s trainer on a cell phone when a kid almost died at football practice. That’s what DCPS calls “safely support athletic programs” Like coach said, ain’t no-one at middle school football accept guys that took an online class.
Extremely negligent of the school system to not have more athletic trainers on staff. This will burn them and the litigation resulting from a serious incident where there isn’t an athletic trainer present will do more damage than they realize. This is shameful.
Athletic Trainers serve a crucial role in our schools. We need to hire more to make sure our student athletes are safe and able to access the care they need!
As a DCPS high school football coach we are lucky to have an athletic trainer that is responsible for setting up the emergency cooling station every day at practice, managing concussions, broken bones and dislocations and making sure our players are hydrated with weight charts and urine testing. When students lives are on the line, there is no good reason that the trainers should be assigned somewhere else during football practice.
DCPS is dropping the ball on its student athletes!!! Athletic trainers play a MAJOR role in the athletic programs across the city!!! And limiting multiple schools to share one trainer is dangerous and unacceptable!!!