Healthy Demand At Marquette Health Center

By Elizabeth Duffrin on Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Address: Marquette Elementary School, 6550 S Richmond St., Chicago, IL 60629

In its first three months, Marquette Elementary School’s new health center attracted twice as many clients as expected. With such high turnout, the center could become self-supporting as early as January, according to staff.

The health center, part of LISC/Chicago's Elev8 program at Marquette and four other middle schools, serves students and their families; eventually, it will serve the wider community.

Eric Young Smith

Parents love it,” said Meredith Casey, the nurse practitioner at the center, which is run by Access Community Health Network. “I think a lot of people are switching over here because they like the care that they’ve gotten, and they like the convenience.”

On July 12, Marquette became the second of Chicago’s five Elev8 school health centers to open with funding from the Atlantic Philanthropies and other grants.

The idea behind Elev8, a national demonstration project, is to show that holistic services for middle school students provided at the school site — from health care, to counseling and mentoring, to academic support and enrichment — can boost their academic achievement and better prepare them for high school.

Principal Paul O’Toole credits Marquette’s health center with helping to increase student attendance in the first months of school. Fewer students are heading home over minor medical complaints, he explained. “Down the road I think it will lead to better achievement,” he added.

Principal Paul O'Toole says the health center has reduced absences and should over time help lead to higher student achievement.

Eric Young Smith

The health centers serve a secondary function, providing needed medical services to families in underserved neighborhoods. While all give first priority for services to middle-school students, they will eventually serve the wider community outside of regular school hours.

Marquette’s center now serves students in grades 6 to 8 and their siblings, and opened to their parents in mid-October. Eventually it will open to the entire Chicago Lawn community.

Accepting a wider client base will allow the health centers to become financially self-supporting within a year. Marquette’s remarkable turnout — 500 clients by mid-October — may allow it to reach that goal in only six months, Access reported.

While Access has opened school health centers before, the enthusiasm greeting the opening of center at Marquette (as well as one at Perspectives Charter School in Auburn Gresham) was unprecedented, said Access administrator Jim Murphy.

The Elev8 health centers hoped to become financially self-supporting within a year, but Marquette's might reach that point within six months.

Eric Young Smith


“In the past, we opened up the school health center the way we opened any other health center,” said Murphy. “We would do a market analysis, connect with governmental officials, make sure it made good business sense for us to be there, and we would hang up a shingle and open up the doors. They opened quietly.”

The Elev8 project was different. Access spent almost two years designing the center with input from parents, school staff and their community partners. Every partner spread the word about the center’s opening. Southwest Organizing Project even sent its HealthCorp volunteer to phone and knock on doors to encourage parents to sign their children up for services.

“By the time we opened up the doors, everyone was excited that we were going to be there,” said Murphy. “The community, the parents, the organizers and the school.”