.jpg)
Wlaf1450
By Charlotte Underwood
JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF)- The Dental Operations Director from Dayspring Health, Danielle Higginbotham, shared the exciting news with the board of education at last week’s BOE meeting that the school outreach dental program would be expanding outside the 5th district into other schools in the county. The school board approved a memorandum of agreement with Dayspring for these services.
Higginbotham said the goal is “simple and that is to ensure that every child has access to dental care regardless of where they live or their family’s ability to get them to a dental office.”
This school year, the Dayspring program visited Elk Valley STEM School, Jellico Elementary, White Oak and Wynn. Of the 83 students cared for across those schools, 60-percent of those students needed follow-up dental treatment, but less than half of those students made it into the Dayspring clinic to receive that treatment, however, they may have went elsewhere.
“We know that many students, especially in the more rural and underserved areas face barriers to receiving dental treatment such as transportation challenges, limited access to providers and family work schedules.
To address this gap in care, Dayspring is expanding its outreach efforts to include a mobile clinic where the pediatric dentist and his team will be visiting these schools and providing the necessary treatment on site.
It’s a really nice bus equipped with everything needed for mobile dental care. Dayspring will continue to go into the schools for preventative care, but the mobile clinic will be for students who need follow-up care to provide extractions, fillings, crowns or whatever the students need.
Dayspring’s second initiative to expand dental care in Campbell County in the 2026-2027 school year is to include grades 6th through 12 in the district 5 schools, as well as grades pre-k through 5th at LaFollette, Valley View, Caryville and Jacksboro Elementaries where students will receive onsite preventive care as well as the treatment on the mobile clinic.
Higginbotham said these initiatives should help remove some of the barriers students face in receiving dental care.
Higginbotham closed by saying that “Healthy smiles contribute to better over-all health, improved concentration in the classroom and fewer missed school days due to dental pain or infection. We look forward to working closely with school administrators and families to make these expansions successful and to make sure every student has the opportunity ty to thrive both in the classroom and in their overall health.” (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-03/16/2026-6AM)