Healthy students make better learners.

That's the slogan propelling the first school-based health center in the Northwest suburbs, which opens today. There are some 1,500 centers like Maine East's nationwide, including about 40 in Illinois.

Maine East High School in Park Ridge has transformed a storage area into a clinic - staffed with a doctor, a nurse practitioner and a mental health counselor - to fill students' basic health needs.

"It's difficult to do well in school if you have physical and emotional issues in your life," Principal David Barker said.

With parental permission, Maine East students can get an examination, immunizations, a pregnancy test, prescriptions and mental health counseling in a partnership with Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, located just down the street.

While the grand opening is today, the clinic began serving students three weeks ago. To date, 76 students have visited the school-based health center. More than 400 of the school's 2,100 students now have parental permission.

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Evanston Democrat whose district includes Maine East, said the teenage years can be a difficult time, so providing mental health counseling is vital to a student's well-being.

"This will be an opportunity to make sure that we're doing everything for our kids for their mental and their physical health right there where it's accessible and convenient for them with excellent care provided by the partnership with Advocate," Schakowsky said.

Maine East officials began planning the clinic a few years ago to serve students who either have no insurance or have no access to health care due to a language barrier or some other reason.

Maine East represents the changing face of the suburbs. Its students speak about 50 different languages, and 70 percent of them are minorities.

Des Plaines' Genesis Center for Health and Empowerment also offers health services to suburban residents, but Maine East will have the advantage of providing services right down the hall, said Ramon Sanchez, Genesis' community representative.

Sanchez said more clinics should be established to serve the burgeoning suburban immigrant community.

Schools in Elgin and Palatine also would benefit from a school-based health center, Barker said. But so far, none has made a formal proposal.

Immigrants need better access to health care because often they lack insurance, Sanchez said.

People who don't have the immigration status to get higher-paying jobs often land at minimum wage ones.

"These are the immigrants who end up getting jobs that don't give insurance," Sanchez said.

Even if the job does offer employees coverage, it may not extend coverage to the employee's family without a hefty price, he said.

Arden Handler, a professor of community health sciences at University of Illinois at Chicago, noted other barriers can keep people from getting adequate health care even if they have insurance. Handler said many lower-income people need better access to health care.

One of the best ways to cure the problem of people being blocked from health care is by offering health services at school, where students spend much of their time, Handler said.

Supporters are rallying around the clinic, but Maine East has also heard the voice of dissent. Some have challenged the use of tax money to fund health care at the school, Barker said.

That's a misconception, Barker said. The clinic is using grant money, and officials have vowed not to use District 207 money to operate it.

Others may question the need to provide free health care in the suburbs.

But thinking the suburbs are only home to the affluent also is a misconception, Handler said.

"We do know that the majority of uninsured ... are working. They are working poor," Handler said. "They're living next to you."