TOLEDO, Ohio — All six Toledo Public Schools high schools will soon have a health center located inside the building.
The district announced Tuesday it received $1.7 million from Health Partners of Western Ohio to expand the school-based health centers at Bowsher and Start high schools.
The district currently has four clinics in the other high schools.
Kelly Sadowski, a physicians assistant at Waite High School, said bringing health care directly to the students is critical.
"A lot of times they're not able to get to a pediatrician's office or to an outside doctor's office," Sadowski said. "So they're able to see us directly where they are every day and that's a huge need for these kids that otherwise may not receive healthcare anywhere else."
The school-based health centers are free for TPS staff, students and their families. Students can get caught up on routine visits and most importantly, it keeps them healthy and in school.
"When kids get sick at school, it's not about, 'Hey mom and dad come get them,'" Superintendent Romules Durant said. "It's about letting us provide the care because we have the facility as well as the personnel to be able to provide these cares. And what you'll find is many of these kids end up staying in school."
One student who's visited the health center at Waite, Jaiden Cope, said it's more than seeing your average school nurse.
"I've built a bond with some of the nurses," he said. "I'll come down and talk to one of them, ask her how her day is and I just feel like it's a great bond, family and atmosphere here."
Along with medical providers, all of the health centers have a behavioral health provider on site. Sadowski said that means any kind of mental health needs the students have are addressed immediately.
"If they come down, they're immediately given a screen to assess for depression and anxiety, and that is handled right where they are," she said. "Which is huge because otherwise, these kids might slip through the cracks and not get the treatment they need."
School leaders say they will never turn someone away for an inability to pay for services. Durant explained if further medical attention is needed, they'll make sure it gets taken care of.
"So what we do is try to find the coverage that allows individuals - whether it's their own insurance that they do have or they may be uninsured - we work with the state as well as other medical departments to be able to work that out," Durant said.
Health Partners of Western Ohio is working to make sure these school-based health centers remain open for years to come.
You can expect to see the clinics at Bowsher and Start open in the fall ahead of the 2022-23 school year.