Construction on Livingston’s school-based health center begins

The Merced Union High School District and Livingston Community Health celebrated on Thursday the groundbreaking of the county’s first school-based health center at Livingston High School.

The health center will be the first in the county on a school site with its primary target as high school students, though it will be open to students’ families and the public. The health center will provide a variety of services, such as dental, behavioral health and family and primary care.

Work to build the health center will consist of remodeling existing classrooms near the front of the school, making Thursday’s ceremony largely symbolic.

The district and health provider hope to have the new health center up and running over the summer so it’s fully operational and ready to serve students by the 2016-17 school year, said Ralph Calderon, an assistant superintendent for the Merced Union High School District.

“In this setting, our hope is that the child will learn how to take better physical care of themselves,” Calderon said. “Whether it’s the food they eat on a daily basis or whether they understand now that it’s healthier to exercise.”

The idea of an on-campus health center was born years ago when Calderon was principal at the school and Hector Bravo was an associate principal. Bravo formed a partnership with the health center and its CEO, Leslie McGowan.

Calderon said that, during his time as principal, ambulances were responding to Livingston High three times more often than they were to other district high schools.

“Most of the issues we were seeing were issues where, had there been preventative care, they wouldn’t get to the point where now we have to call an ambulance,” Calderon said. “It would be something little that’s ignored over time and a kid doesn’t know why they feel that way.”

Alan Peterson, superintendent of the Merced Union High School District, said at Thursday’s ceremony that student wellness was identified as the No. 1 issue on the school-accountability plan.

The school-based health center was an “obvious next step” in the partnership between the school and health center, McGowan said.

The 1,800 square-foot health center will be near the front of the school in a couple of existing classrooms, McGowan said. Livingston Community Health will staff the center with seven or eight employees for 30 hours a week when it first opens. The health center will be built by Royea Construction Co.

Salina Mendoza, the Central Valley program manager for California School-Based Health Alliance, said there are about 240 school-based health centers in the state.

Many school-based health centers are financed by health plans, the Child Health and Disability Prevention Program, grants, Medi-Cal and in-kind contributions of space, utilities and custodial services, according to the alliance’s website.

Mendoza said school-based health centers address attendance and discipline issues with students and reduce drop-out rates. In the Valley, school-based health centers address many cases of asthma and diabetes, she said.

This story was originally published March 24, 2016 at 6:41 PM with the headline "Construction on Livingston’s school-based health center begins."