Sayre High School's new health center won't be your normal high-school nurse's office
Officials broke ground late last month on a new $1.2 million health center at Sayre, located at 58th and Walnut streets, saying the new building will be a boon for both Sayre students and the West Philadelphia community.
The 4,110 square foot health center - scheduled to open in August - will be housed in five converted classrooms currently being remodeled on the high school's campus.
"We're part of the community, and people just have a really good sense working with health care and working with the community that it's something that's going to help the medically underserved in the neighborhood," said Beth Anastasia, senior project manager at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
The Health Center is a Federally Qualified Health Center, which makes it qualified to receive federal funding to give medical care to an underserved area, and it will be open to both students at the high school and members of the community.
Doctors from the University of Pennsylvania Health System will offer treatment at the center.
But the health center is not only offering medical care to West Philadelphia residents; it is offering a unique brand of health education to students at Sayre as well.
"Every job at Sayre is an opportunity to teach," said Kent Bream, a UPHS physician and the Sayre medical director. "Every position was developed as a learning position."
The new health center will replace the school's temporary health clinic, which is currently housed in an RV on the high school's campus.
And while the idea of a school-based health center may not be new, the level of student involvement at Sayre could be.
"It's really a nexus of opportunity," Bream said. "The community needs health care, and the health system needs health care workers, and the best place to get them is from the community nearby. We're building a pipeline between those two because there was a disconnect."
Although the building itself is scheduled to be completed for the upcoming school year, the planning behind its construction has taken far longer than a few months.
The idea for the center has its roots in the work of Ira Harkavy, director of the Center for Community Parternships.
Harkavy began research on combining health and education in the 1980s, and the effort to build the center itself recently picked up steam as the University became increasingly involved with Sayre through community-service programs.
Finally, amid the many difficult stories about Philadelphia schools - including recent episodes of violence at both Sayre and other West Philadelphia high schools - the development of the health center represents a positive collaborative effort around which all members of the community can rally.
"We have to find a way to mitigate all this negative attention that's happening at the school and in the community with something very positive," Gaddy said.
"We're part of something that's really going to make a difference," Anastasia said.
