Students at West High School in Columbus's Hilltop neighborhood can now get dental care and a sports physical in the same building. Nationwide Children's Hospital has expanded its school-based health center at 179 S. Powell Ave., adding select dental care, a second exam room, a larger waiting area and a private telepsychiatry consultation room after a $500,000 renovation funded by the Ohio Department of Health.
The upgrade, first reported by NBC4 WCMH-TV, means the West High clinic now offers services year-round to students and the surrounding community, not just enrolled teenagers. The center already serves children and young adults through age 21, along with Columbus City Schools employees; the expansion newly makes services available to residents of the surrounding neighborhood. West is one of 12 CCS schools with a Nationwide Children's health center on campus. With the added capacity, the site can now also serve students from nearby CCS elementary and middle schools, who may be transported to West High for appointments during the school day.
Filling a Gap Families Feel Every Day
The dental addition lands squarely on a known problem. Data from the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, cited by Nationwide Children's Hospital, shows less than half of Ohio children covered by Medicaid receive regular dental visits, with the state ranking near the bottom nationally in preventive pediatric dental care. A separate 2025 report from the same institute found Ohio children on Medicaid were nearly twice as likely as children nationwide to end up in emergency departments for preventable tooth decay and dental caries in 2022.
Those emergency visits are costly and avoidable, and they underscore why an in-school dental chair matters for a neighborhood like the Hilltop. Separately, the City of Columbus awarded a $1 million grant to Nationwide Children's Healthy Homes program.
Not a Replacement for Your Pediatrician
Columbus City Schools Superintendent Dr. Angela Chapman called the expanded health center a game-changer for students and families, per the station's report. School officials stress the center provides medical and behavioral health services and is not intended to replace a child's regular pediatrician or family doctor. It accepts most insurance plans, including Medicaid, and the district says it will not deny care because a family cannot pay.
The safety-net framing is deliberate. In 2024, 42% of patients at Nationwide Children's school-based health centers did not have an established medical home or primary care doctor before visiting the school clinic, and state health data analyzed by the Health Policy Institute of Ohio shows only 54% of all Ohio children have an established medical home. Nationwide Children's school-based health centers have served more than 58,000 students across central Ohio since the initiative launched in 2015.
Time Saved, Time in Class
Mary Kay Irwin said the healthcare services save each student an average of three hours of classroom time, according to the same account, arguing that keeping kids in school rather than sending them off-site for appointments pays dividends beyond the exam room. She also said children who achieve academically are more likely to grow up to be healthy adults. Ohio Department of Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff said the West High School health center reflects the future of healthcare by bringing care to where people are.
One recently enrolled West student already benefited directly, receiving a required sports physical at the campus clinic rather than scrambling to find an outside appointment before tryouts. School-based health centers are designed to help improve student health and student learning in tandem, and the West High expansion is meant to be a visible example of that pairing.
State Money Behind a Statewide Push
The renovation did not happen in isolation. Ohio had 138 school-based health centers operating across 49 school districts in late 2025, backed in part by $20 million allocated by the Ohio General Assembly to expand in-school medical facilities over two state budget fiscal years, according to the Statehouse News Bureau. The funding is part of a broader state push to expand school-based health care.
Nationwide Children's runs a wider ecosystem alongside the medical and dental offerings. Its School-Based Behavioral Health Services program deploys master's-level therapists across 63 central Ohio school buildings, delivering trauma-informed mental health care and suicide prevention programming, a structure Hoodline has previously covered. Hoodline's coverage of Ryan Day's mental health visit to a Columbus middle school described it as part of Nationwide Children's Day Time Break program. One Fort Hayes Career Center graduate, Uzziah Bailey, went on to work as a dental assistant at Nationwide Children's, a path Hoodline detailed in its report on dental assistant Uzziah Bailey's journey. Similar state-funded projects have opened elsewhere in Ohio, including a new on-campus clinic at Huntington Local Schools.
Families looking to use the West High School health center can schedule appointments by calling 614-355-2590 and selecting option three.
