Tallahassee Democrat My View article- Mon, February 15, 2016
Alexis McMillan, NMC Board Chair and Doug Cook, Principal at James S. Rickards High School
An exciting community partnership is about to engage students and their families in a new and healthy way. Rickards High School and Neighborhood Medical Center will be opening a comprehensive community health center on our southside campus.
James S. Rickards High School’s mission statement states “The school should strive to produce graduates with skills and competencies to succeed on the local, state, national, and international levels and who are responsible, self-supporting, and productive members of our society”.
The administration, teachers, and staff of Rickards understand the critical importance including the input and support of multiple stakeholders in the education of its students and ultimately how that will help support their mission statement. To produce productive members of our society, Rickards has a secondary mission of serving the community and modeling that role for all students.
In the near future, Rickard’s vision of serving their community as a whole will become a reality with the opening of a community service primary care unit. The health center will provide the community with dental, medical, and behavioral health services. In addition to students at Rickards receiving these services, the health center will assist Rickard’s feeder schools: Fairview and Nims Middle Schools and Conley, Hartsfield, and Oakridge Elementary Schools. The long-range plan is to eventually provide regular bus service to students from surrounding schools as well.
Rickards is home to the Millicent Holifield Academy of Health Sciences program, which is designed to encourage and prepare students for entry into post-secondary education in the fields of nursing, pre-medicine, allied health sciences, pre-pharmacy, or pre-public health. With the addition of the new health center, students of the Academy of Health Sciences will be afforded the opportunity of performing externships on their school campus.
Rickards has long believed in the value of strong partnerships with families and the local community. Currently, the Rickards’ Partners for Excellence Program boasts 60 active business partners who regularly share their time and resources with the school. In addition, Rickards has strong partnerships with FAMU, TCC, and FSU to provide mentors to students in need of those services.
The health center at Rickards will further bolster the school’s commitment and dedication to serving the community by providing a vast array of wrap-around services.
The partnership with Neighborhood Medical Center, an established health care provider, will help to insure our students and all who reside in the communities where our students live, will have their best opportunity to achieve and maintain good health.
