Board considers school-based health center at Kent-Meridian

Accessing health care might become easier for students at Kent-Meridian High School.

The Kent School Board is considering establishing a school-based health center at the high school, which would provide basic health care services and mental health care. Kent Phoenix Academy has a had health clinic on its campus since it opened eight years ago.

Sara Rigel, with Public Health – Seattle and King County, helps oversee 32 school-based health centers throughout King County and spoke to the Kent School Board about the benefits of the clinics at the its June 10 meeting.

Typically, the school district contracts with a health care provider to run the clinic. The cost and responsibility of operating the clinic fall on the health care provider.

The clinics usually are staffed by a registered nurse or physicians assistant and a mental health care provider, as well as an administrator who oversees the clinic and is certified in health care enrollment.

“They can actually do all the enrollment for whatever insurance they qualify for there right on site in school,” Rigel said. “They can also enroll families if they haven’t yet accessed their insurance benefit as well.”

Rigel said having access to health care can help students succeed academically.

“We know that compared to kids who don’t access their clinic and may get health care otherwise or not at all, their attendance is better and they have increased and improved rates of gradation,” Rigel said.

School-based clinics can help save time for both students and parents, Rigel said.

“It reduces the time they miss class,” she said. “They are right into the clinic for a quick visit and right back out. Parents don’t have to miss work to take their kids to the clinic or to other doctors appointments.”

Mary Newell, the school district’s coordinator of health services, said in addition to Kent-Meridian students, she hopes the clinic will provide other students with immunizations and sports physicals. It would be up to the operator of the clinic whether services would be available to families and community members.

District officials plan to present the board at its June 24 meeting with a request for investment, which would allow the district to seek proposals from health care providers to operate the clinic. They also plan to present a communication plan for the clinic and information about remodeling classroom space in the high school to accommodate the clinic.

Board member Russ Hanscom supports adding a school-based health clinic at Kent-Meridian although he was a bit leery of the idea at first, since there are already community organizations that provide health care close to the school.

“We have to replicate what is missing from the other higher performing school districts and that is the parental piece,” he said. “A school-based health center replicates much of what’s missing for the support of a kid, so anything that we can do to replicate that kind of support for our student’s success I’ve got to back it.”

KPA health clinic proves beneficial

Merrilee Lyle, Kent Phoenix Academy principal, said before the academy opened, a committee recommended that the school offer health services to students. The recommendation was heeded and students appear to be utilizing the resource, Lyle told the school board.

Last year, 207 students made 1,485 visits to the clinic for mental health and other services. The school serves about 250 students.

Two years ago the school increased the number of days the clinic is open from two to three, providing 22.5 hours of health care service a week. The clinic is staffed by a registered nurse, provided through Public Health – Seattle and King County, and an administrative assistant. Mental health counseling, provided by Kent Youth and Family Services, is available 40 hours a week.

Lyle said providing health care, particularly mental health, is crucial.

“We have seen a change in what our young people face today,” she said. “One of the newest activities online is a cutting club, so students cut themselves and take pictures and post it (online). We had a student come in that had 100 cuts across his chest. If we did not have a mental health counselor or a nurse on site, I don’t know if we could have kept that student.”

Lyle encouraged the board to establish a clinic at Kent-Meridian. She said the district has tried to open services at the KPA clinic to K-M students, but it wasn’t utilized.

“I will tell you from first-hand experience, kids will not visit another school to go get medial or social emotional support,” Lyle said. “Kids don’t like leaving their big boundary schools and their friends.”

Newell said the health clinic can also benefit students’ families. She recalled a situation she encountered while working as a school nurse at KPA where a student was missing a lot of school.

“It is because he stayed home because his mother needed an inhaler, and it is was his inhaler that he shared with his mother and his little brother,” she said. “Through us and working with the nurse practitioner at the clinic that nurse practitioner was able to get that family qualified for health care and be able to get inhalers for all of them.”