THOMASVILLE — The Thomasville City School System plans a school-based health clinic at Harper Elementary School and hopes it will be open by January.
Nurse Revana Mills described the process at the Thomasville Board of Education work session Tuesday.
Mills is taking over the position of community coordinator for the Thomasville City Schools School-Based Health Center Advisory Council from Dr. Tina McBride.
Mills spoke about a recent needs assessment that received 155 responses from parents, 503 from students, 298 from teachers and 28 from community leaders. Those responses indicated that a school-based health clinic is needed in the district and would be beneficial to students and staff, she said.
A medical sponsor for the health clinic has already been identified, Primary Care of Southwest Georgia. This will be PCSG’s fifth school-based health clinic.
“They are very established, very aware of the process. So we are super excited about that,” said Mills.
Mills said the location for the clinic will be at Harper Elementary in the old cafeteria.
“We will not have to build a new structure, we’ll just be renovating the inside of [the cafeteria],” she said.
The next steps for this project will include having three focus groups established to gather more data, Mills said. The first one will be at Harper Elementary on May 16 during its honors assembly, the second group will include the Thomas County Family Connections, and the final group will gather multiple behavioral health agencies and primary care employees.
Mills said their goal is to open the health clinic by January 2025.