Community Schools and School-Based Health Centers: Seeking Academic Success for Students Through Community Partners

Dr. Marilyn Crumpton and Darlene Kamine will be presenting a workshop on school based health centers as part of the popular and quickly expanding community school model that is transforming schools across the country. With multiple partners co-located and collaborating at a school site as part of a shared vision to support the students, their families and the neighborhood, school based health centers within a community school are part of a more desirable holistic approach to improved health and wellness.

 As community learning centers typically offer extended hours daily and year round, school based health providers can expand their client base and serve students during and beyond the school day as well as children and families in the neighborhood who may not otherwise be connected to the school.  School based health centers operating within the community school paradigm also can operate more efficiently as overhead expenses are often absorbed by the school district and administrative costs such as evaluation and technology may be shared among the partners. 

Community schools establish a hub for students, families and neighborhoods, especially those disconnected by urban sprawl, demanding work schedules or unemployment, lack of family support, increased mobility, homelessness, and the many other challenges that families face. In the community school setting, school based health centers have an opportunity to grow services into the community and improve the quality of life for all.

Dr. Crumpton and Ms. Kamine have been working together on the development of community schools including school based health services since 2002 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Dr. Crumpton is a pediatrician and the Executive Director of Growing Well Cincinnati, a health partnership network that provides the capacity for coordinated school health within the Cincinnati Public Schools Community Learning Centers. Dr. Crumpton is also the Medical Director of the Division of School and Adolescent Health for the Cincinnati Health Department. She has spent her career in public health including twelve years as the County Health Officer in Dothan, Alabama. She also served as the Director of Maternal and Child Health in Annapolis Maryland, and as the Associate Medical Director for the Alabama Medicaid Agency.  

Ms. Kamine is an attorney who has devoted her career to juvenile justice including 17 years on the bench as a magistrate in Cincinnati’s juvenile court. She is also the founder of ProKids, a guardian ad litem program representing abused, neglected and dependent children in the juvenile justice system.   

Dr. Crumpton and Ms. Kamine came together with a shared vision to help create the kind of schools in the kind of neighborhoods where we would all want to send our children. The community schools in Cincinnati have been recognized as one of the leading community school initiatives in the country.