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Athletic trainers coming to 5 Duval County schools next year

By Deanna Bettineschi
By Deanna Bettineschi

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A new plan is in the works to keep student athletes in our area safer.

Several big names including the Jacksonville Jaguars, the National Football League and Jacksonville University are working to put full-time athletic trainers in Duval County schools in the next few years.

There were a lot of student athletes at Everbank Field for the Thursday morning announcement.

“This is a collaborative project of multiple community agencies working together for the common goal of increasing safety in our public school athletic programs,” said Robert Sefcik, ATC, LAT, executive director of the JSMP. “The partnership was created to assist the schools in funding a comprehensive athletic training program that will begin as an internship model, with the intent to become a graduate assistantship program through Jacksonville University; that will culminate in the creation of 17 full-time positions within the Duval County Public Schools in the next five years.”

Superintendent of Duval County Public Schools Dr. Nikolai Vitti said over the years, it has been hard to even get part-time trainers in the schools because of funding. Many times they would have to have an EMT and ambulance there for safety, because an athletic trainer wasn't there.

With this new push, Vitti said five schools will get full time trainers and then he hopes that expands in the coming years.

“Ribault, Raines, Jackson, Baldwin and Englewood have always been challenged to find someone consistent at those schools, so going into next year all five schools will have a full time trainer,” Vitti said.

Vitti said in next five years they will have 17 full-time trainers at the high schools.

“The health and safety of student athletes is paramount to the NFL, and as such the Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation was able to secure a grant from the league for $50,000 to help begin this important initiative to ensure that the Duval County Public Schools have full-time certified athletic trainers by 2020 to serve the needs of all sports at the schools,” said Peter Racine, president of the Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation.

The NFL said 15 of their teams started this initiative around the country, and the NFL Foundation has matching grants to fund the program, like the one that's now coming to Jacksonville.

WJAX

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