The Clanton Advertiser
By Joyanna Love
Friday, July 13, 2018
High school seniors interested in a paramedic or nursing career will have a chance to jumpstart their education toward that goal with a new dual-enrollment class at the Chilton-Clanton campus of Jefferson State Community College.
The EMT Basic Dual Enrollment Program will be a year long and include 10 hours of EMS college courses.
“I think it’s a great program, great opportunity for students to be able to go ahead and get the basic EMT done,” CCS Career and Technical Education director Dara Norman said.
Norman said the program is something he has wanted to see offered for several years.
“We had a goal to bring career tech opportunities to our Chilton County area students,” Alyssa Whitman, dual-enrollment coordinator for all of Jeff State’s campuses, said.
State workforce development funding will provide scholarships to the students, allowing the college to offer the class free of charge. Funding specifically for offering career technical education to dual-enrollment students has been awarded to Jeff State each year since 2015. Whitman said the scholarship covers $2,000 worth of tuition and textbooks.
“We thought this would be great, based on the number of nursing students … for the interest we had shown in that area already,” Whitman said.
She said the program is good for students interested in the medical field, being a firefighter EMT, paramedic or nurse, as well as those wanting to join the Air National Guard.
“We are trying to target the students that may not want to go on to a four-year school, but do want to go into the workforce, and give them some skills and credentials that they can use to make them a more valuable prospect as an employee,” Whitman said.
The program includes EMT Basic 118 and 119. The 118 course is the classroom portion, while 119 is the medical rotations, on-the-job portion.
Whitman said the medical rotations could be completed at an urgent care facility, at a hospital or in an ambulance.
Classes will meet each weekday morning. The classes will cover anatomy, physiology and an introduction to medical terminology.
Upon passing the classes, students will be qualified to take the industry license test.
“The scholarship will pay for their first attempt at taking this national registry exam,” Whitman said. “If they pass it, they then receive their license to be a licensed EMT.”
After the program was announced, 35 Chilton County Schools students expressed interest. However, due to the GPA requirements, time commitment for the course and other activities students have going on, Whitman said the class size will likely be closer to 12 for the full year.
She said the smaller class size allows student to receive “more individualized attention” throughout the course.
Whitman said the college is looking into opportunities for students to complete the remaining courses to be a paramedic.
“After they complete the (EMT Basic) program, there is only three semesters left for them to complete their paramedic,” Whitman said.
