Concerns from parents have convinced another Michigan school board to apply the brakes on plans to bring state-funded health clinics to its schools.

The board for Northville Public Schools, which serves an upscale community west of Detroit, delayed a decision on whether to seek state funding for clinics at the district’s middle and high school after about two dozen parents flooded a board meeting on Tuesday.

The Michigan Medicine-run clinics would be staffed by a nurse practitioner, licensed social worker, doctor, dietician, and medical assistant funded by the state, with the district covering building maintenance, Bridge Michigan reports.

Michigan law allows minors over the age of 14 to consent to treatments for drug addiction, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and “limited outpatient mental health services” without their parents’ permission, and some who attended Tuesday’s meeting believe that could be a problem.

“The district would be facilitating the ability for a student to do things without parental knowledge,” parent Tammy Kane told the Northville board. “Who will be responsible when it comes back to bite the district because the district chose to offer medical care rather than focus on their number one job, which is educating our children?”

Others who attended the meeting argued the clinics are simply unnecessary.

“There are plenty (of) clinics in this area, all better staffed than we’re going to have here,” said Matthew Wilk, a former board member and parent of two Northville high school students.

The debate in Northville follows similar discussions in school districts across the state as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration pumps $25 million into efforts to expand on 200 existing child health centers already serving students in Michigan. That involves more than two dozen in mostly rural areas of the state that are currently collecting $2.4 million in “implementation funding” for launch.

Among them is Grand Ledge High School, where Eaton Regional Education Service Agency Superintendent Sean Williams recently highlighted the exact concern many parents are confronting.

Williams told WLNS the state-funded health clinic “is a great opportunity to bring the service directly to students that kind of cuts out the need for parents to take their kids to the doctors when they can schedule that appointment right in their high school.”

Williams said the demand for youth services is high in the wake of the pandemic, when government imposed school closures isolated students for months.

“There are a lot of students that are dealing with depression, they’re having behavioral issues because they haven’t been socialized and working in groups and working with others, and so that service right on campus is going to be amazing here in Grand Ledge,” he said.

While Grand Ledge Public Schools Superintendent Bill Barnes told the news site the clinic in Grand Ledge “has been met with a lot of excitement in our community,” it’s been a different dynamic in others.

Oxford Community Schools and Honor Community Health last year canceled plans for a health clinic inside Oxford High School after overwhelming opposition from parents.

About 66% of the 730 families of students in grades 8 through 12 surveyed by the district did not support the clinic, 11% were unsure, and 23% supported the plan. Among pre-K through seventh grade parents, 54% opposed and 36% supported, and 11% were unsure about the clinic, according to the Oxford Leader.

Opposition from parents and taxpayers similarly shut down a proposed student health clinic at Grosse Point North High School in January 2023 that would have used $1 million in local tax funds to launch and a grant from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for operations.

Opponents repeatedly cited a letter attorney Anthony DeLuca sent to the board on behalf of residents that argued the clinic deal inappropriately sought to “utilize sinking funds to convert a portion of Grosse Pointe North High School into something other than a school building so a third party non-profit health organization can operate an independent business on the premises,” The Detroit News reported.

The school based health clinics have also faced controversies in other communities where local officials have taken issue with how some providers advertise their values and services to students.

In June, the rural Grant school board voted to cut ties with Family Health Care over what locals believe was an objection to a mural promoting the LGBTQ+ lifestyle that greeted students in the health center’s lobby.

The decision sparked a heated community debate that eventually led to the district renewing its contract with Family Health Care in September with specific restrictions, Fox 17 reports.

“Stipulations of the contract include increased transparency; formalizing the Board of Education’s involvement with the Community Advisory Council; regular updates provided to the Board on operations of the school-based clinic; utilities for the clinic being billed to the health center or a third-party; and removal of the student-created mural in the lobby of the clinic,” Alan Neushwander wrote in a release from Family Health Care.

While “diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the forefront of everything we do,” he wrote, Family Health Care “reluctantly” removed the mural at the end of October to appease the board.