Vista Community Clinic A+ Teeth Mobile Dental Clinic Visits Vista Schools

September 23, 2025, Vista, CA - Students at Maryland Elementary School in Vista received a visit from the Vista Community Clinic’s Mobile Dental Clinic on September 22, 23, and 24, 2025.

The 29-foot-long mobile clinic delivers critical dental services to students across the Vista and Oceanside communities, treating children ranging from preschool through high school. The mobile unit is part of VCC’s A+ Teeth Program, which aims to make dental care more accessible to young students, improving oral health outcomes across the community.

The A+ Teeth Mobile Unit is designed with advanced dental technology to provide dental assessments, fluoride varnish application, and dental sealants on-site at schools. This program eliminates barriers to care, such as transportation challenges, ensuring that students receive services to prevent dental decay and connect them to the oral health services they need.

In the past year, VCC’s A+ Teeth Program has served 600 students across 16 schools in the Vista Unified School District. This remarkable achievement reflects the dedication of VCC and VUSD to making a positive impact on the health of our school’s youth.

Community Schools Provide Wraparound Services
“Part of our work at Maryland as a community school is to make sure all of our students' needs are met, not solely their academic needs,” says Principal Renée Evans. “We make sure to get to know our families well, so that we can reach out to our community partners like VCC to meet those needs.

“You cannot learn if you have a toothache,” continues Evans. “You cannot learn if you have a fever and you don't have medical care, you cannot learn if you have social-emotional needs and they haven't been addressed. So part of our goal is to have all of those resources available to our families, and VCC is part of that work.”

A recent report from the Learning Policy Institute shows that Community Schools are having a significant impact on student outcomes.

Providing Access to Care & Information
Dr. Rebecca Cornille, VCC’s Chief Dental Officer, emphasizes the impact of the mobile unit. "At VCC, we understand the importance of early connection to dental care. Our A+ Teeth Mobile Unit allows us to reach children who might otherwise go without care, preventing long-term oral health issues. We’re excited to continue expanding our services and make a lasting difference in the lives of students across the district. This particular unit is out almost every single school day, and some weekends as well,” says Cornielle.

Dr. Cornielle says that VCC does a great deal of outreach to assess the community’s needs. “We've done a lot of work through surveys and outreach to figure out where barriers [to care] or misinformation might be. One thing that we discovered is that oftentimes parents don't realize that the earlier the better. And when we say early, we mean when children get their first tooth. The average child erupts their first tooth at about six months, and oftentimes they think that's too early to go to the dentist, but it actually isn't, because that's a great opportunity to talk about oral hygiene, nutrition, bottles, weaning from bottles, what type of sippy cup works best - all those key informational things and we can really support parents through teething.

“We kind of work hand in hand, especially at the clinic, with our pediatrics department, in making oral health part of the whole health experience, because it is often siloed out. You know, dental is separate from medical, and we're really working at Vista Community Clinic to pull those things together and make sure that parents realize it's a key part of those early visits.”

Schools Provide Vital Partnership and Access to Students and Families
Vista USD has long partnered with the Vista Community Clinic to make health and wellness care more accessible to its students and families.

“The Vista Unified team is so excited to have this valuable service for our students,” says Dr. Matt Doyle, Superintendent of the Vista Unified School District. “We have developed a robust community school model for our district that is focused on deepening our partnership with the Vista Community Clinic to turn our schools into community hubs for education, health, and safety. The A+ Teeth Mobile Unit adds to the already robust partnership with VCC to provide health services to our students.”

Dr. Cornille continues, saying, “VCC’s partnership and collaboration with the community and school officials is essential for the success of health initiatives for our youth, including those that focus on oral health. This program is especially vital for those students who might otherwise have difficulty accessing dental care. Together, Vista leaders and organizations are ensuring that every child has the opportunity to lead a healthier life.”

Making Kids Comfortable
A visit to the dentist can be an intimidating event, and the mobile clinic helps to quell those fears by offering a new experience and friendly staff. Luis Lopez, Care Coordinator for VCC, has been with the dental program since 2014, and sees the mobile clinic’s impact on eradicating the fear of the unknown.

“When we started the program. A lot of kids were afraid, especially the little ones, because they knew what they’d heard about dentists. They related it to pain. But now, since we have been coming to the schools, they know us. We work with them from Pre-K through middle and even high school, and they know us. They see me.

“Even if they see me [outside of a school], they will say, ‘Hey, you're the dentist.’ They think I'm the dentist. A lot of parents don't have the time, or they have to take time off work, so I think it's a great, great service that we come to schools, and I've seen the benefit of it.”

VCC-VUSD Mobile Dental Clinic Statistics

• The VCC Mobile Dental Clinic examined 627 VUSD students across 20 schools in the 2024-25 school year
• The clinic provided 291 sealants to students
• The clinic provided 265 referrals for further care

Children’s Oral Health Statistics

• 1 in 4 US children aged 2-11 have untreated cavities
• Parents/Guardians miss 2.5 work days per year to care for their children’s dental concerns
• Children reporting tooth pain were 4x more likely to have a lower grade point average than children without tooth pain
• Children miss an average of 6 school days per year; 2.1 of those days are dental-related

Statistics via the American Journal of Public Health