L.H. Williams Elementary partnering with First Choice Primary Care for new health clinic
L.H. Williams had a 34% chronic absenteeism rate during the 2024-2025 school year. Leaders expect the new clinic to help offset systemic barriers facing the Pleasant Hill community.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Bibb County School District is working to keep students and staff healthy and in the classroom. The district is partnering with First Choice Primary Care to open a third school-based health center, this one at L.H. Williams Elementary School.
L.H. Williams had a 34% chronic absenteeism rate during the 2024-2025 school year. Leaders expect the new clinic to help offset systemic barriers facing the Pleasant Hill community.
“This is not just an L.H. Williams problem,” said Dr. Cynthia Jones, Principal at L.H. Williams. “This is a public health problem.”
Dr. Jones says transportation, accessibility, and the cost of healthcare are all factors contributing to sick days for students. When it opens, the school’s new clinic will offer sick and well-child visits, prescription deliveries, a full-time nurse practitioner, sports physicals, behavioral health services and even a dentist when it expands.
“If a student comes in and they’re complaining with a various illness or something’s going on with them, we will send them to our school nurse,” Jones said. “Our school nurse will do an assessment and of course send that student off to the school-based health center.”
The roughly $1 million dollar project is being funded mostly by a grant from the Georgia Department of Education’s Office of Whole Child. Katherine McLeod, CEO of First Choice Primary Care, expects the clinic’s services to be permanent.
“If we’re doing what we need to do and busy and providing services that children and families want, we can support ourselves after that grant is over,” McLeod said.
The clinic’s doors will first be open to students, staff, and their family members, and will later be open to the community. Dr. Jones says it’s too often that one household family member getting sick leads to all missing work and school, and she’s glad to see the likelihood of such instances decrease.
“We know that that’s going to lead to better outcomes academically and health wise for our students here at L.H. Williams,” Jones said. “So we’re very excited about it.”
