The Pulaski County School Board approved, at its meeting on October 11, 2022, the establishment of a health and dental clinic on the campus of Pulaski County High School in partnership with the Community Health Center of the New River Valley.
This clinic will allow parents the option to schedule appointments and have their children treated for minor health related issues, check-ups, and physicals during the school day without having to leave work and without signing their children out from school. The dental clinic will serve students on site but also establish a mobile schedule for services that will be provided in each elementary and middle school at regular intervals throughout the year. The clinic will accept most insurance providers and no student will be refused treatment regardless of ability to pay as long as the clinicians have been given parental consent.
Dr. Kevin Siers, Superintendent of Pulaski County Public Schools, stated, “This is a real game changer for Pulaski County families. We are very proud of the fact that this clinic will help our students become healthier, happier learners and hope to see a marked improvement in attendance rates as well as improved parent satisfaction with the variety of services beyond instruction that are provided in our public schools. The folks from the Community Health Center of the New River Valley have already established an incredibly successful school based clinic in Giles County and we are excited that they were interested in developing a similar partnership with Pulaski County Public Schools.”
The school based clinic first appeared as a discussion item on the School Board’s agenda in March 2022, and the project recently went through the public procurement process as a request for proposal (RFP) advertised through the Virginia Department of General Services’ central electronic procurement website which resulted in the award being made to the Community Health Center of the New River Valley.
The actual clinic site is still in development at PCHS but school officials hope to have it operational before December 1, 2022.
The memorandum of understanding approved by the Pulaski County School Board establishes a yearly renewal process for continued operation of the clinic. Additional information regarding treatment services and consent forms will be made available to parents in the near future.