BATON ROUGE — Fifty-nine nurses employed through a contract between Our Lady of the Lake and the East Baton Rouge Parish School System will no longer work with the schools now that the system is taking its nursing staff in-house. 

The school board was notified in January that the district intended to bring services in house, and the board formalized the move at a committee meeting last week, according to a district spokesman.

"The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board decided during a committee meeting last Thursday, May 9, not to renew a contract with Our Lady of the Lake that will impact several school-based nurses," spokesman Perry Robinson said. "The decision was made as a cost-saving maneuver for the school system.

"Instead of sourcing the nurses through OLOL, the school system will hire the nurses directly, which could potentially save the district over $900,000 a year," he said.

Robinson said many people had interviewed for the new district-run positions or participated in discussions about the jobs. He said the district's human resources team had reached out to any of those who expressed an interest in staying aboard.

The notice of employment termination was made public through the Louisiana Workforce Commission in late April, closer to when the jobs will actually disappear.

The hospital system said its Health Care Centers in Schools program had worked with the school system since 2011.

"We understand the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board’s business decision to bring their individual school nursing program in-house and will continue to provide excellent care through the end of our contract term," it said.