Ludlow Independent Schools has joined a growing wave of Tristate districts to open a health center to keep kids in classrooms and ensure their parents do not have to miss work.

        By the fall, health centers will also open at Grandview Elementary in Bellevue and at Southgate Elementary. These two schools' centers will share staff, whose salaries are being paid by a nearly $350,000 grant awarded by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

        Since it opened in March, about 50 students have received services at the Ludlow School-Based Health Center, which is also funded by the health foundation. Students and staff can receive immunizations, routine physical exams and strep tests and have ear infections diagnosed.

        “We decided to open a center in Ludlow because we have always found that there was a need,” said Cathy Pedro, coordinator of the Family Resource Youth Service Center and grant coordinator for the health center.

        She said the community has one part-time physician, but he doesn't offer immunizations. “Health care was not convenient.”

        Two years ago, Northern Kentucky Family Health Centers Inc. and Silver Grove Schools opened one of the Tristate's first school-based health centers.

        Other districts that have school-based health centers include Boone County, Newport Independent, Silver Grove Independent, and Williamstown Independent. Erlanger-Elsmere Independent Schools also are opening two clinics in that district.

        John Schlitt, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, said there are more than 1,400 such centers nationwide.

        He said they provide “access to a kind of care that most kids don't get,” including early prevention care, risk assessment and counseling about behavioral risks.

        At Ludlow, a nurse practitioner works 32 hours per week and a project director works two days a week. One of the main goals of Ludlow's new health center is to reduce the number of students who leave school because of illnesses.

        Cincinnati Public Schools has several school-based health centers and plans to open more.

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