The North Union Board of Education recently approved a pilot partnership between North Union Local School District and the Union County Health Department for a school-based health care program.
After the school board meeting on Monday, Union County Health Commissioner Jason Orcena informed the Marysville Journal-Tribune that the Wildcat Wellness Clinic is “designed to increase access to health services, such as annual well-student visits, by providing those services on the school campus for a limited time during the 2022-2023 school year.”
The school-based health care program is voluntary. Students under the age of 18 will need parental consent before being seen by a health care professional. Consent forms have been sent to district parents to be completed, signed and returned to the front offices of the respective schools for students to receive care at the clinic.
Orcena said parents may “attend the clinic with their minor students as well.”
“The purpose of the Wildcat Wellness Clinic is to ensure every student in the district has access to comprehensive, accessible, preventive health care,” Orcena said. “The Wildcat Wellness Clinic will be staffed with a team of board-certified, licensed health care professionals who will work closely with school staff and parents.”
Orcena said services offered include preventive health and wellness physical examinations, which evaluate student health risks, screen for health conditions, promote health and prevent disease and disability. Other services may include counseling, vaccinations and health education.
“If health concerns are identified during the visit, the health care provider will work with the student and the family to create a personalized health plan that may include referral to other physicians or specialists,” he said.
The school district and the heath department hope to reduce school absences and “eliminate barriers for students and families” through the clinic, Orcena explained.
In addition, the school board agreed to extend the proposal process for the field project by three weeks to receive more interest from contractors.
Brian Wolf, associate principal at Garmann Miller & Associates, and Ryan DeMay, owner and principal of Field Source who is the consultant for the field project, said they sought proposals to regrade the stadium field and to provide irrigation to the new practice field.
“We didn’t receive any proposals, although we did have two interested in the pre-bid,” Wolf said. “It really came down, I think, to the market and the timing.”
He added that many contractors were not available to have the existing football practice field regraded and seeded to be ready for practice in June.
DeMay said an option is to sod the field instead of seed it because of the time constraint, which would increase the cost of the project.
“The other option is to continue to go down the path of seeding,” DeMay said.
In that case, football practices may have to be moved to a different practice site.
DeMay said it comes down to a qualitative versus a quantitative solution. The board must consider where they want the football team to practice next year. Would they rather incur an extra cost of sod so the players can undoubtedly return to the practice field?
He added that irrigation will begin on the new practice field “in the next couple of weeks.”
“That will be irrigated, graded and seeded,” DeMay said. “You should have no issue with that being ready for summer next year.”
Wolf added that there were changes to the irrigation design, which saved almost $70,000 from the original cost estimate.
As for the stadium field, DeMay said the goals are still achievable.
“We’ve got options in there for sod if we need it,” DeMay said.
He said contractors will be very mindful about impacting athletic programs, especially track, during the project.
Wolf explained that the grading of the stadium will not affect the D-areas behind the goal posts on either end.
“The good news there is it’s going to be half the sod and/or the seed. It’s going to save us about $1,000 if we end up seeding and it will save us almost $15,000 if we had to sod and exercise that alternate,” Wolf said.
Board member Matt Staley asked if there was a “no-go date for seeding.”
“We would really like to have at least 120 days of growth, so four months from our first game,” DeMay said.
He said the target date is mid to late April.
Scott Maruniak, CFO and treasurer of the school district, said on Tuesday that installing sod on the existing practice field and on the stadium field are separate alternatives to the original plan.
In an interview on Tuesday, Superintendent Richard Baird said DeMay emphasized that many factors can delay the field project, from the availability of contractors to weather, which would require the district to go with sod as an alternative.
“We have to be prepared for everything,” Baird said.
With football practice beginning in the summer, the practice fields need to be ready by June. The district has until August to finish the stadium field for the first home game of the 2023 season.
It is possible that the Wildcats may move a home game if the board wants to move forward with seeding.
At this time, the new practice field has been graded and soil has been stockpiled. Remaining items for the project include grading of the existing practice field and the stadium field, relocation of shot put and discus areas, the installation of an irrigation system for the practice and stadium fields and grass planting.
The base proposal estimate was originally estimated to be $750,000, Maruniak said. Some items have been removed from the recent request for proposals, so the base proposal is lower than expected. Furthermore, the decrease in price of the irrigation system will lower the base proposal estimate amount, he explained.
“Overall the entire project estimate is roughly $950,000,” Maruniak said.