By Elizabeth Duffrin/LISC Chicago
In its first three months, Marquette Elementary School’s new health
center attracted twice as many clients as expected. With such high
turnout, the center could become self-supporting as early as January,
according to staff.
Parents love it,” said Meredith Casey, the nurse practitioner at the
center, which is run by Access Community Health Network. “I think a lot
of people are switching over here because they like the care that
they’ve gotten, and they like the convenience.”
The Elev8 Health Center at Marquette. Photo: Eric Young Smith
On July 12, Marquette became the second of Chicago’s five Elev8 school health centers to open with funding from the Atlantic Philanthropies and other grants.
The
idea behind Elev8, a national demonstration project, is to show that
holistic services for middle school students provided at the school
site — from health care, to counseling and mentoring, to academic
support and enrichment — can boost their academic achievement and
better prepare them for high school.
Principal Paul O’Toole
credits Marquette’s health center with helping to increase student
attendance in the first months of school. Fewer students are heading
home over minor medical complaints, he explained. “Down the road I
think it will lead to better achievement,” he added.
Principal Paul O'Toole says the health center has reduced absences and should over
time help lead to higher student achievement. Photo: Eric Young Smith
The health centers serve a secondary function, providing needed medical
services to families in underserved neighborhoods. While all give first
priority for services to middle-school students, they will eventually
serve the wider community outside of regular school hours.
Marquette’s center now serves students in grades 6 to 8 and their
siblings, and opened to their parents in mid-October. Eventually it
will open to the entire Chicago Lawn community.
Accepting a
wider client base will allow the health centers to become financially
self-supporting within a year. Marquette’s remarkable turnout — 500
clients by mid-October — may allow it to reach that goal in only six
months, Access reported.
While Access has opened school health
centers before, the enthusiasm greeting the opening of center at
Marquette (as well as one at Perspectives Charter School in Auburn
Gresham) was unprecedented, said Access administrator Jim Murphy.
The Elev8 health centers hoped to become financially self-supporting within a year,
but Marquette's might reach that point within six months. Photo: Eric Young Smith
“In the past, we opened up the school health center the way we opened
any other health center,” said Murphy. “We would do a market analysis,
connect with governmental officials, make sure it made good business
sense for us to be there, and we would hang up a shingle and open up
the doors. They opened quietly.”
The Elev8 project was
different. Access spent almost two years designing the center with
input from parents, school staff and their community partners. Every
partner spread the word about the center’s opening. Southwest
Organizing Project even sent its HealthCorp volunteer to phone and
knock on doors to encourage parents to sign their children up for
services.
“By the time we opened up the doors, everyone was
excited that we were going to be there,” said Murphy. “The community,
the parents, the organizers and the school.”
