The Houston Independent School District (HISD) announced recently it is expanding its partnership with Hazel Health, one of the country’s largest providers of school-based telehealth, to offer no-cost care at every campus and Sunrise Center in the district. Students will receive services regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay. In the following weeks, HISD and Hazel Health aim to conduct community events to demonstrate to families how to access these services.
Hazel Health services are currently offered at 88 campuses within HISD and will expand to include the entire school district in the coming academic year. HISD students will be able to access no-cost telehealth care through their school.
“HISD is reimagining what it means to meet students’ needs in and out of the classroom,” said Najah Callendar, senior executive director of external engagement for HISD. “Hazel Health’s telemedicine services are one of the most exciting components of our Continuum of Care approach, and we’re thrilled to make these supports available to every student in the district.”
Which services will students receive?
For the expansion, HISD plans on investing $1.8 million. Provisions for the services include:
- Telehealth services for HISD students for free,
- More resources to support nurses,
- Virtual appointments with an average wait time to see a doctor of four minutes,
- Behavioral and mental health counseling with therapists,
- A clinical support team that will help families navigate long-term treatment plans and
- Access to common over-the-counter medicines and prescription refills.
“Expanding Hazel’s virtual services will promote health equity in the community by ensuring all students can access the care they need,” said Dr. Travis Gayles, the chief health officer of Hazel Health. “Students will receive high-quality care regardless of their immigration status, ability to pay, or whether they have health insurance. Our partnership with HISD is removing barriers so students can come to class healthy and ready to learn and thrive.”
Currently, Hazel Health provides teletherapy and virtual care to more than four million K-12 students.
How Black and Brown students will be impacted
HISD also recently announced job cuts to wraparound specialists who serve economically disadvantaged students with unmet basic needs such as homelessness and hunger issues. From the next school year, HISD will coordinate the logistics of student support through its eight Sunrise Centers. These centers will continue to provide medical care, basic needs like food and clothing, case management, language classes, and employment support, says HISD.
Around 80% of HISD’s 183,884 students are economically disadvantaged, 65% are considered “at-risk” students, and around 6,900 are homeless, according to HISD’s student profiles data. The district’s Black and Hispanic students reported the highest amount of need, per HISD Student Needs Survey, conducted by the Kinder Institute’s Houston Education Research Consortium during the 2021-2022 school year, to understand the challenges students and their families encounter. These students rely on wraparound resource specialists.
The wraparound services also have a new mandate, which comprises a shift toward attendance and dropout prevention. HISD’s Homeless Services Office downsized from 40 to 12 employees in March.
The number of affected employees in the new round of job cuts is unknown as the district has not confirmed the exact number.
“Like most school districts in Texas and across the country, HISD is being forced to make some very tough budget decisions for next school year. State funding for education has not increased, and the time-limited emergency aid provided by the federal government to help districts respond to the pandemic is no longer available. This means that in order to meet our students’ needs,” HISD said in a statement to the Defender earlier. “HISD must right-size our central office and find ways to operate more efficiently.”
