PORTLAND, Maine — Some school districts are seeing an increase in students using school-based health centers, which offer medical, dental, and mental health care all under one roof.
These clinics make accessing care easier for students and their families. In South Portland, Superintendent Tim Matheney reported a 59% increase in medical visits from the 2022-2023 school year to 2023-2024.
South Portland Middle School hosts one of these clinics, operated through a partnership with Greater Portland Health. Services include sports physicals, immunizations, dental exams, mental health care, and more—all without students having to leave the school building.
"I think it's an exciting partnership because a student's wellness is intimately connected to their ability to learn," Matheney said. "I think parents send their kids to our school district hoping they're going to be well cared for and what better evidence that kids are going to be cared for well than having a health clinic right here in our schools."
Last year, Greater Portland Health practitioners conducted more than 1,200 medical visits, along with roughly 400 mental health and dental care visits each, according to Matheney.
Families without easy access to transportation or those just looking for more convenience, have said these clinics are a game-changer.
Greater Portland Health has seven health center sites in schools across Portland, South Portland, and Westbrook.
Dr. Gita Rao, the medical director for the school-based health centers, said the medical team has seen the number of visits increase from 4,271 to 5,598 from the 2022-2023 school year to 2023-2024.
Penobscot Community Health Care (PCHC) runs a similar program in the Bangor region. PCHC operates school-based health centers in the Bangor and Brewer school districts, as well as RSU 34.
Picabo Mower, an LCSW mental health provider with PCHC, highlighted the benefits of in-school health centers for families.
"If a kid doesn't have any transportation but they get bused to school, they could see the doctor at school or get mental health services at school," Mower said.
Mower said many parents see waitlists as long as nine months to get their child the mental health care they need. However, the in-school centers often get students care faster.
In terms of medical visits, Mower said the Bangor School Department has seen medical visits triple in the past year. In September 2023, the school department had 34 medical visits, while September 2024 saw 104 visits for medical appointments alone.
South Portland superintendent Matheney said about 60% of the center's users are multilingual students, while 40% grew up in the U.S. with English as their first language.
Matheney said South Portland has also seen a surge of asylum-seeking families who don't necessarily have convenient access to healthcare. For kids wanting to play a sport, he said, the low-barrier access to a sports physical in their school helps them get onto the field.
“It just lowers the obstacles to kids being a full part of the community,” he said.