Chair Lee on school-based health center expansion and siting
Lee asks about additional capital needs and new school-based health centers. Martin discusses the program serving 140,000 students across 139 sites, emphasizing its importance for families concerned about immigration status. Anderson notes the carve-out will stabilize resources for city-supported sites.
And then in terms of actually the school-based health centers, are there additional resources, capital needs, things that are needed of that sort that's in the budget as well that is, I guess, a new need?
Are there new community health centers that are going to be put online for the school-based health centers?
For school-based health centers, yeah.
So let me say a few words there, and then I'll hand it to Aaron to talk budget.
So our school-based health center program helps to serve about 140,000 students across the city.
That's throughout 139 school-based health centers.
And so, again, this is no-cost primary care for students.
And it's something that I think, given the place where we're heading and where we are now with the federal environment that we're in,
you know, when a family is concerned about going to a hospital or primary care clinic, knowing that their school
can offer the services that that child might get somewhere else and also not ask questions about immigration status.
And, you know, I think that this is going to serve an even more important role moving forward.
And so, you know, we're really excited to lean in to the school-based health center program.
Let me hand it over to Aaron to talk about the budget.
Sure, yeah.
So just to underscore the city's commitment to school-based health centers, it's about nine
million dollars a year supports 34 sites of the 139 across the city.
The only thing I would add is just to underscore the importance of the carve-out.
I mean, I think that itself will go a long way towards stabilizing the resources for the many sites that the city does not support.
So I think that goes a long way.
I think there's certainly a larger question about
what the right number is, but we're certainly happy to be a part of those conversations.
Okay.
And do you look at zip codes, areas where there's chronic disease, more prevalence, to figure out where to place them?
Yeah, so we are working with partners across the city and across city agencies to make sure that we identify the right places for these school-based health centers.
Okay.
And so that data is always...
A part of the conversation when it comes to deploying these resources.
Okay.