WHAT TAXPAYERS WILL COVER?
Denton ISD taxpayers will cover the cost of building the entrance for the PediPlace clinic, internet infrastructure, janatorial services, electricty, heating and cooling and some lighting.
Administrators said those will likely cost up to $30,000, but can be paid for by existing funds.
PEDIPLACE & DENTON: BY THE NUMBERS
PediPlace in Lewisville had 3,944 visits in the 2022-2023 school year.
1,144 patients were children from the Denton ISD area.
12 percent of Denton ISD students have no medical insurance.
Of the Denton ISD students seen at PediPlace, 88 percent are on Medicaid or CHIP.
At the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, the Denton PediPlace clinic will be open for 16 to 24 hours a week. Clinic leaders expect to expand to 32 hours a week in the second year.
The Lewisville Clinic had a 20 percent increase in school nurse referrals.
When the Denton ISD Board of Trustees approved an agreement to bring a nonprofit pediatric clinic that will serve poor children inside Fred Moore High School, they were met with murmurs of dissent.
One woman raised her voice, saying, “Shame on you!” as a large group left Tuesday night’s board meeting.
Board members Mia Price, Barbara Burns, Charles Stafford, Patsy Sosa-Sanchez, Sheryl English and Lori Tays voted in favor of bringing PediPlace, the Lewisville clinic that serves children on Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or who are uninsured, to the district campus.
The nonprofit has operated a satellite clinic at Lewisville ISD’s Central Elementary for about 19 years.
Board member Amy Bundgus cast the sole vote against the agreement, though she expressed support for school nurses and the families who struggle to find health care for children on assistance. Bundgus said she’s received more feedback on the partnership with PediPlace than any other item the board has considered and said 95% of the feedback has been opposed to moving forward.
She asked the board to table the vote for more discussion and cast a vote against it when her peers moved to vote on it.
“I’m very in touch and I have great affection for our nurses and what they’re trying to do,” Bundgus said ahead of the vote. “Nothing that I’m saying is unsupportive of what our nurses do ... I don’t think anyone on the board, or frankly, I don’t think anyone in the room disagrees that we want health care for our community. We want health care for our children. We want the uninsured to have health care. I was at one point a single parent ... I understand those needs.”
Bundgus said the board is charged with making decisions in the best interests of education. She also pointed to what she called “carve outs” in the Texas Family Code that allow minors on Medicaid to give their own consent to pregnancy tests and screenings for sexually transmitted infections. She said the code also allows minors on Medicaid to consent to seek treatment for chemical dependency and suicidal ideation. The code, she said, allows minors to exclude their parents from the very health care discussions they’re most interested in being part of.
Larry S. Robins, the president and CEO of PediPlace, said the clinic prioritizes parental consent in giving care.
“PediPlace always follows the law,” he said. “And we will always follow the law and be in compliance with whatever the law dictates. And sometimes we like it, and sometimes we don’t.”
Robins said PediPlace doesn’t see patients who are infants through age 18 by themselves. The clinic provides both primary care — which includes annual physicals and vaccinations — and management of chronic conditions, and it also offers mental health screenings and counseling.
“Our clinic practice is that we don’t see a patient without the parents’ consent,” Robins said. “... Not only do we require parental or guardian’s consent to treat, but we require that the parent or appropriate caregiver is present when treatment takes place.”
Robins explained that a parent or guardian must pick up their children from school and take them to the satellite clinic. At the Central Elementary clinic in Lewisville, students who attend the school have to accompany their parent or guardian out of the school and into the clinic, which can only be accessed outside of the school.
The Denton clinic would be designed and operated the same way.
The meeting brought out a higher number of speakers than usual and reflected the ongoing political divide that has affected school boards and city councils across Texas and the U.S. According to the cards visitors fill out to speak during open forums, most on Tuesday night wanted to speak in opposition to the clinic. The majority of those who spoke against the measure recorded that they don’t have a student attending any Denton ISD campus, though several said their grandchildren attend district schools.
Melinda Preston, a Frisco resident and the executive director of Denton County Citizens Defending Freedom, a conservative group, spoke in objection to the agreement. Preston said she has four grandchildren attending Denton ISD campuses.
Evelyn Brooks, the newly elected District 14 representative on the Texas State Board of Education, which includes Denton ISD, also objected to the agreement. Brooks is a Frisco resident and homeschool parent who ran as a Republican.
Many of the speakers who attended are regular attendees of board meetings and have objected to the district’s handling of COVID-19 and challenged library books they say are pornographic. The objections were varied, but the chief concerns were that a nonprofit clinic diverts resources from education, and that the clinic might allow minors to seek medical and mental health care without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
Nicole Goodman, a nurse and the Denton ISD director of health services, said PediPlace would ease the persistent problems that students on Medicaid, CHIP or who are uninsured face when they need health care. They come to their school nurse, and campus nurses sometimes have to refer them to a clinic. While the list of local providers who serve Medicaid and CHIP patients “looks long,” Goodman said, clinics routinely stop taking patients, meaning families are faced with months-long waits to see a provider for care they often need immediately or within a day.
Goodman used pink eye as an example of the barriers families without insurance, as well as those who are on assistance, face.
“Many students are unable to get in quickly to see a provider,” Goodman said. “Which means something that should have taken them a day — you should have gone to the doctor, got the eyedrops and come back in a day — turns into three or four days because it’s difficult to get into their primary care. Or they don’t have one. Or they’re uninsured.”
PediPlace has local bona fides. The clinic is a partner nonprofit with the United Way of Denton County. For the satellite clinic planned for Fred Moore High School, the district has gotten financial commitments from community and corporate partners: Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kiwanis Club of Denton, the city of Denton, Rotary International (with support from Lewisville, Flower Mound, Highland Village and Cross Timbers) and Audacy, a free broadcast and internet radio platform.
The city of Denton has pledged $230,000 over the next three years for personnel and infrastructure.
Blue Cross Blue Shield has given a $25,000 grant to cover preventative care for uninsured children from birth to 15 months. Rotary clubs have committed to $11,500 for medical supplies. Local Kiwanis clubs will continue their longstanding medical support for underserved children in the city.
Denton ISD Superintendent Jamie Wilson said the agreement furthers the district’s mission of removing barriers faced by teachers and community members.
“Simply put, if kids aren’t in school because they are sick, they are not learning,” Wilson said. “If kids aren’t in school, they aren’t learning math and reading.”
Wilson said the agreement reflects the board’s priorities.
“I know I’ve received many emails and lots of correspondence over the last couple days on this topic. I really do appreciate the vigor with which parents are engaged in this process,” he said. “This board has charged me with trying to access as many nonprofit community resources as possible to help make sure our kids are getting to school ... so that’s what we’re doing.”