Suit: Chicago Public Schools Bungled Contract For Special-Needs Nurses
(CBS) -- Some are calling it a school nurse fiasco. Now, the Chicago Board of Education is facing a federal lawsuit.
Some special-needs kids are without the care they needed.
CBS 2's Mike Parker reports.
The first day of school is supposed to be full of wonder and excitement for students. But for many special needs kids, it was anything but.
Five-year-old Mason Williams, a child with severe lung injuries, was supposed to start kindergarten accompanied on a school bus and in the classroom by a nurse. The nurses come from a provider contracted by CPS.
But there were no nurses for Mason Tuesday or for many other kids.
"My son may not know the degree of what's going on, but I feel very disappointed because I feel they don't care about the disabled," Mason's mother, Sofelia Whitehead, says.
CPS is the target of a lawsuit filed Friday charging that the board of education unfairly canceled the contract of the previous nurse provider and brought in a new one starting this year.
"The first week of the Chicago public school system under this new contract has been chaos," Lance Northcutt, the plaintiff's attorney, says.
