The North Beach School District and Grays Harbor County Public Health department took another step toward implementing a school based health center for the district by hiring a physician to provide primary care at the clinic, which will be up and running this fall.

The Grays Harbor County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved the hiring of Dr. Laura Galati, a naturopathic physician and licensed midwife currently running her own private practice, Spring Tide Family Health, in Hoquiam.

Galati will work up to two days per week at the health center in the North Beach Junior/Senior High School, which will serve students, faculty and staff of the district with sports physicals, vaccinations and emergent health care issues.

“We are very excited to offer Dr. Galati the position,” said Mike McNickle, Director of Grays Harbor County Public Health in a Tuesday press release. “She is an amazing health care provider who brings experience and passion to her work and will do a fantastic job of providing health care to the students, faculty and staff at the North Beach School District.”

According to the release, North Beach Superintendent Jim Shank was directly involved in the hiring process and agreed Galati would be a “great fit.”

Galati said children have always been a focus of her primary care, and last year she received a Center of Excellence certificate, which allows her to diagnose autism in kids under 18 years old, adding that the service is lacking in many places. She is also a member of the School and Autism Medical Review Team (SMART) for Grays Harbor and Pacific counties.

“I just really liked the idea of helping out the community and working with children,” Galati said in an interview. “Ocean Shores is even farther than Hoquiam — there’s kind of limited care out here and it’s even more so in Ocean Shores.”

According to the School-Based Health Alliance, school-based health centers are “typically located in schools where students have socioeconomic, geographic or other barriers to accessing healthcare in the community.”

A collaboration between the North Beach School District, Grays Harbor County Public Health and the Quinault Indian Nation, the project is funded by the state Legislature with a $250,000 startup grant, plus a $150,000 grant for operations in year two and further funding for years three and four. Once the center is up and running, it’s likely to receive yearly funding from the state. Planning for the center, including community needs assessments, was conducted over the course of last year with a $50,000 grant from the state Department of Health.

Galati’s duties are “seperate and well defined” from those of the district nurse, McNickle said. Former district nurse Ann Allen said Friday she did not renew her contract with the district for the 2023-2024 school year, and that the district is actively searching for a someone to fill the position, which has been shifted to part time.

Galati said she is happy to be involved at the outset of the project.

“That kind of excites me to be in it at the beginning to kind of help figure out, maybe, what it’s going to end up looking like in the future,” Galati said.

More than 65 school-based health centers operate in 25 districts across the state, including in Elma, but that center is not under the administration of county public health.

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.

*An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Ann Allen would be working as the North Beach School District nurse for the 2023-2024 school year.