LITTLE ROCK — A new health center located on the Jasper School District campus will help more children see a doctor when they are sick or have a toothache.
It will house the only dentist in Newton County.
When a school nurse would notify a parent that their child was sick, “some of them were unable to take off work and immediately take care of the child’s needs,” Superintendent Kerry Saylors said. “They lacked resources to gas up the truck to go to the doctor.”
The new in-school health center will help change that dynamic.
Renovations are under way inside the foyer of the school auditorium to make room for the 2,200-squarefoot health center, which is set to open in late spring, said Nicole Fairchild, health clinic coordinator for the district. The center will have three exam rooms, a laboratory and a dentistry suite with three chairs. Mental-health services also will be provided through the center.
The closest dentist to Jasper is 30 minutes away in Harrison, Fairchild said.
Jasper has one medical clinic, but families also see physicians in Harrison and Marshall.
Going to the doctor means students are “going to miss at least half a day of school,” said Teresa Hatfield, mother to six adopted children and two foster children.
Hatfield and husband Toby Hatfield, a teacher, coach and dean of students for the Jasper School District, moved to Jasper from Clinton in May. Teresa Hatfield continues to take her children to see a physician in Clinton, a two-hour drive. She said she is looking forward to the new center.
“It will make a huge difference, just in the money we would save in gas driving to and from the doctor,” she said.
The pediatrician in Clinton will continue to serve as her children’s primary-care physician, but the doctor can refer the children to the school-based health center, Hatfield said.
Fairchild explained that the goal is not to keep sick children at school but to get them to a doctor sooner. Parents will have to sign consent forms for their children to be seen at the school-based health center, she said.
Fairchild said she hopes easier access to health care will result in fewer absences, contribute to increased academic achievement and ultimately higher graduation rates.
School-based health centers are also being developed this year in the Lamar and Prairie Grove school districts, said Tamara Baker, school-based health center adviser for the state Department of Health. School-based health centers are a project of the health department and the state Department of Education.
The Lamar School District’s on-site health center will provide medical services twice a week. It will open some time after spring break in a renovated building that once housed a day-care center, Superintendent Roy Hester said. He said he envisions the center eventually providing medical services five days a week and offering dental and eye-care services.
Hester said school officials were concerned that too few children were receiving annual checkups and preventive screenings.
“We’re still going to have our school nurses,” he said. “We want to try to get these kids who are not being served at all and ward off some childhood diseases.”
About 1,200 students attend the Lamar School District in Johnson County, and 70 percent of them qualify for free and reduced-price meals, an indication that many students are from low-income families.
Health-care providers will bill ARKids First, a state insurance program for more than 70,000 low-income children, and health-insurance plans, but children can receive services even if their parents are unable to pay for them, Hester said.
The idea is to keep children healthy and to keep them in school, Hester said.
The Lamar School District encompasses 300 square miles, and the closest physicians and dentists are in Clarksville and Russellville, Hester said. Clarksville is about six miles from the campus, and Russellville is about 20 miles away.
Since 2010, 11 school-based health centers have opened, serving about 3,000 children, Baker said. The first three centers opened in Fayetteville, Lavaca and Springdale.
“It saves on missing school,” Baker said. “We want them to feel good and catch things early.”
School districts apply for grant funding that comes from a tobacco excise tax established in 2009, Baker said. Grants amount to about $500,000 over a five-year period, with each center receiving $150,000 the first year and decreasing amounts each of the next four years.
The grant application requires that school districts demonstrate strong support from the school board and community, Baker said. The program also requires a school nurse on campus.
“It really works well in places where there’s no other provider or the students just can’t get to the provider,” Baker said.
The Jasper schools serve 890 students from a 615-square-mile area. Though some families are wealthy, nearly three-quarters of the district’s students are from low-income families, Saylors said. Some families live an hour away from larger cities, such as Clarksville, Huntsville and Harrison, he said.
“It’s going to greatly impact the physical and mental health of our students that for one reason or the other in the past were not receiving those services,” Saylor said.
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 12/23/2012