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This story has been updated to correct the board's position on the health care center. The Board of Education passed a motion to: "Move forward with the plan to offer a school-based health center at Woodlands High School and to acquire all information necessary for same." It did not send a letter in support of the center.
GREENBURGH, N.Y. A community health center is looking at branching out and has once again focused its sights on a Greenburgh school.
The Mount Vernon Neighborhood Health Center and its satellite campus, the Greenburgh Health Center, have renewed a years-old effort to bring a school-based health center to Woodlands Middle/High School.
Working in sync with the school nurse, the center would provide students with access to a variety of primary care services, regardless of insurance status, and at no cost to the district, according to Judith Watson, executive director of the Greenburgh Health Center.
We are exploring all of the possibilities and looking at all the options to make this happen, Watson said. I dont intend to let this opportunity get by me.
First presented to the board nearly a decade ago, the centers opening has been stalled by periodic funding through federal grants and a lack of support by previous administrations at Greenburgh Central 7, Watson said.
The health center is working to secure the funding.
While the two groups continue to sort out the details, and timetable of the plan, Watson said it would likely be staffed by a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant and a nurses assistant.
Children would have access to vaccines, physicals and other preventative health care measures.
I think it would be a good thing for a lot of our students, said Greenburgh Central 7 Board member Cora Carey during a work session late last month. There are so many kids out there who dont have the opportunity to go to a doctor.
Already, the center has set up a school-based health center at Edward Williams Elementary School in Mount Vernon and is in the process of getting a number of other locations up and running, Watson said.
The center would be funded through grants from the Bureau of Primary Health Care, a branch of the United State Bureau of Health and Human Services.
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