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A lawsuit against the federal Department of Education by Massachusetts and 16 other states over rescinded COVID-relief funds has forced some unlikely characters onto a national stage: three New Bedford friends who wanted to build a health center.
Alex Weiner and his childhood friends, current New Bedford High teacher Nick LeBlanc and fellow nurse Ken Vasques, wanted New Bedford to build a health center in or near a school. It would go far beyond what a school nurse’s office could provide. Students and their families could go to the health center for primary care, a diagnosis, and prescriptions.
In 2022, the New Bedford school district agreed. It decided to use federal COVID-relief money to build a new health center on the high school campus. Now, the $6 million building project could be cancelled due to the rescinding of federal funds.
“Seven years ago, when I was writing this paper with my friends, did I think it would be at the center of a legal battle? Hell no,” said Weiner, a nurse and lifelong resident of New Bedford.
On March 28, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon rescinded $106 million in federal COVID-relief funds from Massachusetts, as part of a 50-state clawback. New Bedford lost $15 million, according to state officials.
The Trump administration contends that new buildings like the proposed health center were not the intended use for COVID-relief funds.
“[Massachusetts] even states in their own press release they want this money for BUILDINGS, not learning recovery,” read an April 1 post from the Department of Education’s press secretary on the social media platform X.
Last Thursday, 17 states, including Massachusetts, sued to restore the funds.
Whether New Bedford gets its health center hangs in the balance. And the decision to use COVID-relief funds on a health center may feature in the legal arguments.
New Bedford Superintendent Andrew O’Leary defended the health center project in a statement to The Light: “Research has repeatedly shown that bringing health providers and schools closer together works.”
How three friends proposed a health center
Back in 2017, Weiner excitedly called his friends in New Bedford after a pediatric rotation for his nursing degree at Yale.
On his training rounds, Weiner had visited a primary-care facility for students and families inside a Connecticut high school. He said the school “looked and felt like New Bedford” — his hometown and where he planned to return to work in public health.
He called his friend from the fifth grade, Nick LeBlanc, who was now a New Bedford High teacher, and explained how transformative it was that students could get their regular check-ups at school. Then he called Ken Vasques, from the ninth grade (and his eventual college roommate), who by chance had just written a paper about the benefits of school-based health centers for one of his degrees.
That got these friends rolling.
Within weeks, the old friends had written a research proposal about the benefits of a health center designed around easy access for low-income families in New Bedford — a story originally reported in The Light. Their research paper noted the serious health needs of New Bedford’s students, including: triple the teen pregnancy rate compared to the Massachusetts average; only 58% of students visited a dentist; and more than 1 in 10 students had seriously considered suicide.
Their idea for a school-based health center won support over the next five years from school nurses, district officials, and health advocates around the state. But in New Bedford, a cash-strapped urban district, there was never enough money to take on such a project.
Finally, in 2022, New Bedford Public Schools announced that it would build the health center on the high school’s campus. Roughly $6 million of the district’s total $74 million COVID-relief award would fund the construction project. The health center would operate on grants and staffing from the existing Greater New Bedford Community Health Center.
The health center would fight the pandemic-induced chronic absenteeism and health disparities among New Bedford students, the district said, in part citing the research proposal from Weiner and his friends.
It’s “absurd” that the project is embroiled in this controversy, Weiner told The Light over the phone this week.
“We know that there’s evidence that this gets butts in the seats,” Weiner said. “I would say it’s a great use of funds. It helps us get back on track. Any tool that will improve attendance, that will improve kids being at school” is worthwhile, he said.
“I thought it would be built already, or I hoped it would.”
Already signed contracts could leave district in legal trouble
Before the funds were rescinded on March 28, the district had already employed architects and designers to study and prepare a site. It had signed a contract with a modular building company, according to district officials. It had made plans to offer primary care and immunizations at the building.
Since the funds were pulled away, however, district officials have said they are unsure how the project will proceed. At a recent School Committee meeting, Superintendent O’Leary said the district may face legal liabilities for the contracts it already signed.
New Bedford has stood out for its strategy of using COVID-relief funds for one-time costs, like infrastructure and building improvements, rather than recurring salary costs. “While [COVID-relief] funding is well understood as one-time funding, its impact can — and should — be long-lasting. That’s what recovery means,” said O’Leary.
“It remains striking that New Bedford is without a school-based health center,” O’Leary wrote in a statement to The Light, “a gap that echoes through our absenteeism, homelessness, and student wellness data.” He noted that Connecticut, Secretary McMahon’s home state, has an expansive network of school-based health centers, underwritten by federal support.
Dozens of other Massachusetts school districts have school-based health centers.
Pulling back federal funds would “dismantle supports that help students recover from lost instructional time in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic,” O’Leary said.
The lawsuit against the Department of Education
Attorney General Letitia James of New York is leading the lawsuit on behalf of the 17 states listed as petitioners.
“Cutting school systems’ access to vital resources that our students and teachers rely on is outrageous and illegal,” said James in a press release. The states are asking a federal judge in New York to rule that the department of education’s actions were illegal and violated Congress’ intent, and that previously-approved funds can be spent as planned.
“The end of the COVID-19 pandemic is not a lawful basis to rescind the prior extension approvals,” according to the lawsuit. “Defendants have never asserted, much less demonstrated, any failure by Plaintiffs to satisfy the requirements for obtaining extensions.”
Moreover, James argues that “Congress did not tie the availability of the funds to the period of the public health emergency,” like it did for some other COVID-relief programs. The Department of Education may have violated its powers by dictating an end-date for Congressionally-approved funds, James argues.
James also argues that districts can use the funds for infrastructure or building projects, saying they can “pay for the various projects, facility upgrades, and support services for which Congress specified the funds were to be used.”
The state solicitor for Massachusetts, David C. Kravitz, signed on to the lawsuit on behalf of state Attorney General Andrea Campbell.
Campbell released this statement after the lawsuit was filed: “Though Massachusetts has some of the strongest public K-12 schools in the country, we are not immune from the devastating and lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we work to recover from learning loss and financial hardship caused by the pandemic, our schools rely on federal funding to serve their most vulnerable students, including our homeless youth.”
Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org
stop taking taxpayer money, we want the money back, get you own money
It was never our money. It was COVID RELIEF MONEY. I don’t know what you people do not understand. Building such a building was not COVID RELATED. therefore the funds were never legally there for that reason. The current admin thinks they can do whatever they want. Well they can’t and I’ll personally make sure every dollar will be repaid and returned. The money was used improperly. Not for COVID, pay it back.
You’re misinformed. The purpose of ARP was to direct address the economic impact of the pandemic and help set systems to prevent a future by improving what COVID revealed to be broken — like how we providence student healthcare. This is the purpose the relief act, directly from the Treasury Dept. Report on success stories: “ In March 2021, President Biden signed a historic piece of legislation, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARP).
Building on the lessons from the Great Recession, ARP sought not only to help communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic but equip them to build a stronger and more equitable economic future.”
Read for yourself: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/ARP_3YearsIn.pdf
As a taxpayer we all benefit from healthy young people. They can keep my money.
I agree with Taxpayer Too. More than happy for my tax dollars to support projects like these.
Then start a go fund me page with you own funds and other own funds. The misappropriated usage funds are to be returned, there were MISAPPROPRIATED!
Too bad, then contribute to a go fund me page for them. It was not their money for this purpose, therefore it’s not your money. You want them to build it, contribute directly to a go fund me page. Then that’s your money.