Healthy Schools Escambia adds Brentwood Elementary West Pensacola Elementary
PNJ Headlines: Here’s what’s in the news Friday
People hot under collar over fire fee hike, more Escambia students to get free medical care, and meet Four Winds’ new owners in Friday’s news
- Brentwood Elementary, West Pensacola Elementary selected as next Healthy Schools Escambia sites
- Healthy Schools Escambia begin offering free services to Global Learning Academy, O.J. Semmes Elementary students and their families in January
- The program is administered with the help of a variety of community service providers and will launch at the new schools Nov. 1
This fall, about 900 more Escambia County Public School students will have access to free on-campus medical, dental, optometry care, afterschool tutoring and other services.
Students at Brentwood Elementary and West Pensacola Elementary are the third and fourth schools selected for Healthy Schools Escambia, an initiative that also provides other free wraparound services for the children’s families.
The schools join Global Learning Academy with 484 students and O.J. Semmes Elementary with 283 students in the five-year pilot program, which the Escambia Children’s Trust approved last fall.
Since beginning at Global Learning Academy and O.J. Semmes Elementary in January, Jessica Johnson, Healthy Schools Escambia program director, said the initiative has made impactful inroads in the lives of the students and families.
From January through June, 358 students received medical and dental care through the initiative. Also:
- 266 students were mentored through the Council on Aging of West Florida’s Foster Grandparents program.
- 266 families/students attended a child abuse and safety education workshop provided by Gulf Coast Kid’s House.
- Three families and three students were referred to Lakeview Center for mental health services.
On the academic side, the program established afterschool tutoring at Global Learning Academy and Semmes, with nearly 80 students participating. A Summer Enrichment Program for rising fifth graders and a registration event for new Global Learning Academy students were also held.
“We even provided the funds for two field trips for Semmes fifth graders to visit the Gulf Breeze Zoo and Fort Pickens, and hosted afterschool sports programming for 25 students at Global,” Johnson added, noting the school did not have the resources for the field trips.
At Brentwood and West Pensacola, the same services will be provided in the coming weeks. However, Johnson stressed that each school’s Healthy Schools Escambia programming would be tailored to the needs of its students, noting each school will focus strongly on afterschool tutoring by teachers the students know.
“Our needs assessments have helped us to understand what the schools and parents are saying is needed at each campus,” she explained.
“Overall, we want to ensure that children in the schools are healthy, holistically well. But we’re also looking at attendance, engagement, academic excellence,” she said, adding the initiative’s primary goal is to match the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child framework.
The national program is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and is a framework for addressing health in schools. On-site medical, dental and eye services; social service support; nutrition and health education; mental health services; community, school and family engagement opportunities; on-site after school physical and academic support programs; and mentoring are among the services available at schools as part of the initiative.
At West Pensacola, Johnson said there is a need for the Y Sports Program, which allows students to participate in a new activity such as basketball, flag football, soccer and baseball every six weeks.
“This gives the kids an opportunity to go outside and run around, which lessens their screen time and keeps them physically active,” she said.
In October 2024, the Children’s Trust approved an $804,000 bid by the United Way and community partners to provide the Healthy Schools Initiative at the two elementary schools. The United Way’s community partners include Achieve Escambia, the Arc Gateway, Community Health Northwest Florida, Council on Aging of West Florida, Gulf Coast Kid’s House, Lakeview Mental Health, Legal Services of North Florida, the University of West Florida and the YMCA of Northwest Florida. The initiative begins on Nov. 1.
Last fall, Lindsey Cannon, executive director of the Children’s Trust, said the ECT had originally planned to include 10 ECPS elementary schools in the initiative over the five-year period. However, the ECT scaled down the program in order to pay back taxes.
The Children’s Trust has budgeted $450,000 per school per year to fund the initiative, which will bring wraparound services onto the schools’ campuses, Cannon said.
Johnson praised Community Health Northwest Florida for medical and dental services, but said the addition of optometric services has been beneficial.
“Community Health has been coming into the schools for a while. But the optometric services are new, or rather, resurfaced. The service was offered some time before, but now through Healthy Schools Escambia, we have the opportunity to reintroduce it,” Johnson said.
“We’ve received referrals or emails from school staff, saying ‘we have this child or children who need glasses.’ And we have some families who don’t have the resources to purchase special readers, for like, disabilities. So being able to support those more tailored needs has been helpful to families of those children.”
Johnson added the partnership with Legal Services has also been invaluable.
“We’ve referred a couple of families to Legal Services for support—particularly evictions or other sensitive topics like immigration,” she added.
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