The earliest type of health visits to schools involved official inspections for communicable diseases. A formal program of health inspection and preventive care for schoolchildren was begun fairly tentatively in 1907 by the Seattle Board of Health. Administering a comprehensive health program for Seattle's public schools, however, became the responsibility of the Seattle Public School Board in 1914.

Initially, Seattle's parochial schools were the exclusive beneficiaries of the Department's school health services. A part-time physician and two public nurses were employed by the Maternal and Child Health Division to conduct a thorough range of physical examinations, immunizations, and testing throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Dental examinations also were provided.

After the unofficial amalgamation of the two health departments in 1947, school health services were extended to parochial and public schools in King County by the newly formed Seattle-King County Department of Public Health.

The Parochial School Division had been established early on. Nurses from this unit regularly visited Catholic elementary and high schools to conduct vision and hearing examinations.

Visiting Nurse in Classroom, 1952

Oral Health Program, ca. 1973

Vivian Jones, oral health therapist, presents a story about Mr. Tooth and his friends. Jones was with the oral health team of the Mobile Health Unit (MHU), a pediatric clinic on wheels. Even before the MHU bus went into motion, the staff took the program to the people.