Beginning next fall some Dayton Public Schools students will be able to see a nurse practitioner during the school day. DPS Friday announced a new partnership with Five Rivers Health Centers in Dayton to open a health clinic inside the building that currently houses Dayton Boys Prep Academy, slated to become the future home of Roosevelt Elementary.
The clinic will serve students and is expected to be open to students’ families and neighborhood residents after school hours, regardless of their ability to pay, due to the stipulations of a federal grant.
Mamle Anim, Five Rivers Chief Medical Officer, says she hopes the clinic will help reduce chronic, health-related student absenteeism and address some of the other key health problems faced by many West Dayton public school students, such as asthma, obesity, and mental health issues.
“We have wanted to get into schools over the past couple of years because it’s difficult for parents to have to pick their kids up, to get out of work. One of the things we really want to do is be where we’re needed, not always have patients come to us,” she says.
The clinic will include three examination rooms, three or four dental chairs, a vision suite and a behavioral health center.
It will be staffed by a nurse practitioner, a mental health specialist, and a optometrist. A dentist will be on-site at certain times, DPS officials say. And, students from other schools who need medical care will be able to take a van to the new clinic to be treated during the school day as well.
The budget for the clinic has not been finalized.
The clinic is partly being modelled off of similar clinics in Cincinnati public schools, DPS officials say.
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Editor's note: A previous version of this story said the school district would conduct a fundraising campaign to support the clinic. That was inaccurate and has been corrected.