Health Clinic to Open at Rogers HIGH This Fall Kaiser Permanente Boosts Project with $590,000 Grant
Students at Rogers High School will have access this fall to their own school-
based health center run by the Community Health Association of Spokane.
The center, expected to open in November, will provide a wide variety of health care services to students, including medical, behavioral and dental care as well as offer connections to community programs. It is made possible by a grant from Kaiser Permanente.
Lori Wyborney, principal at Rogers High School, said she's wanted a clinic in the school for years.
"We've been trying to do this for a long time, probably since 2012, so we're super-excited to finally get this approved and have the grant and get going," she said.
The clinic will be housed in the early childcare room of the high school's teaching academy, which will be moved right across the hall. The school-
based health center will be accessible to the public and the community through a separate entry, and Wyborney expects a lot of construction this summer to get the clinic open.
CHAS applied for a grant from Kaiser Permanente to open the health center earlier this year. Kaiser Permanente awarded CHAS a three-
year, $590,000 grant to get the clinic up and running. A handful of neighborhood councils also voted to pool some of their federal funding toward the project as well, accounting for another $165,000. CHAS will provide the staffing and coordinate with Spokane Public Schools programs already operating at Rogers.
Research shows that school-based health centers can improve student outcomes in the classroom as well as their personal health.
"It actually helps impact indicators of success both from an academic and a health care perspective," Kelly Stanford, vice president of clinical operations for Kaiser Permanente in Eastern Washington, said. "So grades and attendance and graduation rates (improve) as well as reducing hospitalization."
Wyborney hopes the clinic will help increase attendance at Rogers High School. In 2015, when students were forced to stay home if they hadn't gotten up-to-date vaccinations, Wyborney said 87 of her students were forced to stay home.
"We get a high number of kids with the flu because they don't have access to flu shots," she said. …
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