Volusia County Schools works to renew contract with AdventHealth for student health care
Will the Volusia County School Board renew its five-year partnership agreement with AdventHealth?
The contract — originally approved in 2018 — was pulled by Superintendent Carmen Balgobin at the board's June 25 meeting. This was the second time the contract's renewal was pulled, with the first having taken place in a February board meeting.
The contract establishes AdventHealth as the "Official Healthcare Champion" for Volusia County Schools — establishing that the private hospital system "is the exclusive student education and student wellness partner of the School Board for all purposes and on all levels, including but not limited to health care for students and student athletes at the schools of the School Board and healthcare academic programs, and related sponsorships and naming rights, marketing, educational and support programs, graduate recruitment, e-care, high school athlete healthcare ecosystems, athlete safety and concussion protocol at all sporting events," according to the 2018 contract.
Balgobin told the board that the new contract would come back to them for approval at the board's next meeting.
School Board Chair Jamie Haynes, however, had concerns about the contract.
"I appreciate everything that they've done, but we've also lost opportunities for our students because of them having the exclusivity piece," Haynes said.
Haynes was concerned that, because of the partnership with AdventHealth, the School District would miss out on opportunities to partner with Halifax Health.
School Board member Carl Persis, who is the only one still on the board who was present in the 2018 vote, said that when the contract came up for renewal this year, the district wanted to clarify with its general counsel on the exclusivity piece. The district wanted to ensure that it didn't prevent Halifax Health from having any presence in the schools.
"We never felt like we had that language stated in in such a way where it where it was clear," Persis said.
The district, he added, also sought to clarify whether AdventHealth would be the entity responsible for having an athletic trainer at every high school football game. The agreement with AdventHealth doesn't preclude Halifax Health from sending representatives for Career Days or having their interns help out at schools.
The district has never had a financially-backed partnership with Halifax Health, Persis said.
" We just had a long history with them," he said, citing the use of the hospital's behavioral center for Baker Act cases. That didn't change with the partnership with AdventHealth.
In a statement to the Observer, a spokesperson with AdventHealth East Florida Division said the agreement aimed to help address three key issues at VCS: chronic absenteeism, student athlete health and career development within the health care industry.
Since the 2018 contract was approved, AdventHealth has provided free physicals for VCS athletes, band members and Jr. ROTC members, as well as cardiac screenings that have helped at least two Seabreeze High School athletes become aware of heart conditions.
Haynes said at the June 25 board meeting that the contract should have been brought back in January 2023. She believed it was time for the board to take "a long, hard look" at the contract, which she said left the board with no rights on the matter; AdventHealth was given the rights to opt-out halfway through the five-year period, but the District was not given that option.
"I've never seen a contract like that," Haynes said. "I just can't believe it passed. So I agree it needs to come up."
Persis said the biggest problem with the contract in 2018 wasn't the agreement itself — it was the way it was handled. Late former Superintendent Tom Rusell, who was fired by the board in 2019, didn't tell the School Board he had been working on the agreement with AdventHeallth, nor did he inform Halifax Health of the negotiations.
The board didn't want to lose a relationship with Halifax Health that would benefit students, and it hasn't, Persis said. But the contract needed to be clarified.
"I think it's safe to say that we'll be going into this next five years with a much clearer and better understanding of what the contract says and what it doesn't say, and in the implications that it has with our other medical providers," Persis said.