Westbrook and Windham school districts are now assessing the impact of the loss of their school health coordinators after state cuts eliminated the posts across Maine.

Sandra Hale had served as Westbrook’s school health coordinator since the program was launched in 2001, carrying out initiatives ranging from employee wellness, health policies and anti-smoking efforts to physical education curriculum development and school nutrition.

Stephanie Joyce worked as the school health coordinator in Regional School Unit 14 for the past three years, covering similar initiatives.

Their positions were eliminated on July 1 due to cuts at the state level. School health coordinators had been funded by regional Healthy Maine Partnerships through the Fund for a Healthy Maine. The money came from Maine’s portion of the 2000 tobacco settlement. The state Legislature this year voted to cut funding to the Healthy Maine Partnerships by one-third, and redirect part of the settlement money to the state’s general fund.

According to John Martins, spokesman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, the elimination of the 31 positions statewide represents $2.1 million.

Martins said that because the school health coordinators were not present in every school district, the decision was made to cut the positions “and use the funding to strengthen the Healthy Maine Partnership across the state, which are also experiencing reductions.”

The coordinators have done “very good work,” Martins said, adding that the Healthy Maine Partnerships will “continue to support the schools in a smaller way.”

Westbrook Superintendent Mark Gousse said the work of the school health coordinator was “beneficial,” but added that the district had been “prepared and planning for cutbacks,” and he was not surprised when the news came.

“Is it important? Absolutely,” Gousse said, adding that when resources become scarce, “tough choices have to be made.” The district, he said, is working to figure out ways to carry the programs and initiatives forward through residual staffing and programming.

“We’re trying to make lemonade out of lemons here,” Gousse said.

The initiatives, he said, won’t be abandoned, but will likely be scaled back.

“Will it be done to the same degree? The short answer is: how could it be?” Gousse said.

A Department of Health and Human Services document explaining the decrease in funding to Healthy Maine Partnerships acknowledges that it would not be possible “to replicate all of the work that the 31 full-time school health coordinators accomplished in the districts in which they were employed.”

In RSU 14, meanwhile, the district has managed to hire Joyce under the food service budget, where she will continue her work on school nutrition, including programs such as the salad bar, farm-to-school initiatives and menu development.

The school district will try to carry forward her other work, which included staff professional development, acquisition of physical education equipment and grant writing. Joyce said she doesn’t “see that happening to the same extent” as when she was working on the initiatives full time.

“Not only are they losing a staff person,” Joyce said, but the district is losing the extra resources that that person was bringing in. During her time in the post, Joyce said, she scored $125,000 in grant funding.

RSU 14 Superintendent Sandy Prince said the elimination of the position would have an impact on the district, explaining that Joyce had “facilitated resources and grant writing.” As a “point person,” he said, Joyce had been working on building and communicating awareness of health, and addressed specific needs at RSU 14. Joyce also kept the district educated on policy changes, including at the federal level.

“That will be a loss,” Prince said.

Prince said the funding cut “wasn’t a total surprise, but the magnitude of the cuts was a surprise for me.”

Schools were officially informed of the cut in mid-June, after the budget season, and the positions were eliminated effective July 1.

Lucie Rioux, who heads the Healthy Rivers Healthy Maine Partnerships in Cumberland County, said that the loss of the school health coordinators would have a “huge impact” on students. The position, she explained, was “unique and specific” and there is no way to replace it in the short term.