More than half of high school students in the Indian River School District are registered with the district’s two high school-based wellness centers, with that number continuing to rise.
A few months after voting unanimously to continue the Indian River School District’s partnership with Beebe Healthcare, school board members got some data on the partnership’s benefits for students.
Under the program, Beebe manages and staffs two wellness centers, one at each of the district’s high schools. Those facilities are staffed by professionals, including nurse practitioners and physician assistants, mental health counselors, and dietitians.
Speaking to board of education members last week, Beebe’s Dr. Su Chafin, the program’s administrator, highlighted the program’s successes, including high utilization rates and a growing number of new signups.
According to Beebe’s data, at Indian River High School, 56 percent of the student body - 600 students - are registered with the school’s wellness center as of March. That represents a significant increase since July 2025, when 436 students were registered.
Sussex Central High School saw better numbers. There, nearly two-thirds of students are registered with the wellness center with 277 new students registered since July 2025. As of March, more than 1,200 students were part of the program.
Students seem to be using the wellness centers in large numbers as well. Sussex Central’s wellness center saw almost 1,200 visits, while Indian River, with a much smaller student body, saw over 1,100.
More than 50 percent of the wellness centers’ patients were either on Medicaid or uninsured, something that Beebe says shows the centers as a safety net for students with inadequate access to care.
Chafin said that the numbers from IRSD stack up well against similar facilities across the state.
“Some of the impact we have been able to compare to the state numbers that are occurring within school-based health care, and we are ahead in a lot of our services and numbers that we're doing,” she said.
Of the more than 2,300 wellness center visits across the district, a significant number - more than 40 percent - were related to mental health. That included more than 250 depression screenings and risk assessments.
Reproductive and sexual health services were also heavily utilized with more than 400 visits for contraception, pregnancy tests, and STD screenings.
Responding to a question from one board of education member, Chafin noted that Delaware law allows minors to access reproductive and sexual health services without parental notification.
“Some kids prefer not to tell their parents certain things, and the law about contraception and sexually transmitted diseases in Delaware is that you can get treated without your parent or guardian knowing,” she said. “But we really make an effort to try to include parents.”
Beyond everyday treatments and evaluations, the wellness centers are also engaging in outreach and partnerships, organizing mental health groups for girls and bringing information on issues like problem gambling, dating violence prevention, and internet addiction. Additionally, clinicians undertake telehealth visits for behavioral health during school breaks.
Looking ahead, Chafin told board members she wants to expand the program. That could include bringing wellness centers to the district’s middle schools. Beebe is in the running for grant money through Governor Matt Meyer’s Rural Health Transformation Project. Grant awards for that project are expected this month. Support from other local healthcare facilities is also a possibility, she said.
“We're hoping between some of the hospitals in your area that we'll be able to help out your middle schools in the future,” she said. “As far as how we're going to do that, all remains to be seen, space, that sort of thing.”
Beebe is also developing a partnership with Nemours to connect students in Sussex County with specialized multidisciplinary teams.
“We might be working to do some telehealth within the wellness centers where we can help students down here be able to be linked up with an eating disorder clinic where they have a multidisciplinary team,” she explained. “Our nurse practitioner can do vitals, lay their eyes on a student and help them be a part of those multidisciplinary teams.”
