One of the answers to the “What’s new?” question for the Bulloch County Schools in the 2025-26 school year that began last week is a school-based health center serving employees and students of the Langston Chapel Elementary and Langston Chapel Middle Schools.
To be clear, it’s not a free clinic and does not take the place of the school nurses. The center is being operated in partnership with the school district by East Georgia Healthcare Center Inc. – not the Statesboro hospital but the unrelated, Swainsboro-based nonprofit corporation that operates healthcare clinics throughout the region. East Georgia Healthcare will bill Medicaid, insurance or other payers for services.
For his first-day-of-school news conference, Superintendent Charles Wilson met reporters at 9 a.m. Friday, Aug. 1, inside Langston Chapel Elementary School, where a temporary version of the new, $1 million state grant-funded, school-based health center has been installed in a former faculty lounge area to serve students, faculty and staff at both LCES and adjoining Langston Chapel Middle School. A more permanent version of the health center is slated to be installed in a modular building between LCES and LCMS by January.
The new health center will serve only students and employees of those two schools.
Statewide initiative
A $1 million grant from the Georgia Department of Education is funding the construction and startup with the goal that the school-based center should become self-sustaining.
Part of a statewide effort to expand healthcare access through public schools, the Langston Chapel health center joins Georgia’s network of so far 123 such centers, according to a news release. Back in 2022, Gov. Brian Kemp announced a $125 million state investment in the School-Based Health Center program, to help reach underserved communities.
The Langston Chapel schools were chosen for Bulloch County’s foray into the program because they have the school district’s highest percentage of students who are in foster care, are Medicaid eligible, or are experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness.
Reporters met school-based operations coordinator Jean Marie Hunter, family nurse practitioner Alania Greene and patient representative Regina Quarterman, all employed by East Georgia Healthcare Center at the school site. Dr. Sreevalli Dega, the Statesboro-based family medicine physician, will be on call with the center.
Parental permission
Vaccinations – of the types routinely offered for children and generally requested or required for school eligibility – will be one of the services available, but always and only with parent permission, Hunter said.
“We’ll be in the vaccine application process starting on Monday (Aug.4) , to get approved by the state to have vaccines for children so that children who need vaccines can actually come to the school-based health center, get those vaccines and go right back to class so kids are not missing school to go get vaccinated,” she said.
In fact, parental approval is required for children to visit the center for any reason, and parents are welcome to come with their children, Hunter added.
The Langston Chapel schools each employ school nurses, who will continue to provide basic health services for students independently but can make referrals to the center.
About 50 parents from Langston Chapel Elementary had already signed permission forms for their children to access the new health center by the first morning of classes, said LCES Principal Al Dekle.
“I think it’s going to be great for us,” he said. “It’s going to keep more kids in school, for one thing.”
On the more general topic of he day, Dekle reported that school started smoothly Friday, with well over 90% of Langston Elementary’s approximately 685 enrolled students showing up, many escorted in by parents for the first day. Together, LCES and LCMS enroll more than 1,400 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade.