Imagine getting your hopes up to be enrolled at the Kent Career Tech Center (KCTC). You apply, but you are not accepted. You feel knocked down, wind out of your lungs. The rejection letter states no room due to limited seats. This year may be a loss, but there is hope coming. KCTC courses are coming to the high school.
One of the most popular KCTC courses is the health and career foundations course. This year KCTC was only able to take 50% of the students that applied. 446 students signed up for the health career foundations course this year, 226 students were not able to take the course this year but the implementation of KCTC at the highschool will lower these numbers. Students enrolled in the health career foundations course visit healthcare facilities for real life patient care experiences.
Taking this course is the gateway to starting your career in the medical field one step ahead. In the first year there will be an opportunity to get first aid, CPR, and possibly an electrocardiogram (EKG) certification. You will only get these in your first year of KCTC, you will not be able to go into a hospital and get a job but in the second year of KCTC you can get an Emergency Medical Technician (EMS), Medical Assistant (MA), Nurse Tech (NT), Patient Care Tech (PCT), Pharmacy Tech (PT) or a Certified Phlebotomy Tech (CPT) certification. Students that take this course choose which certification interests them and apply most to their planned future career. There will also be an opportunity to earn one or three medical terminology college credits. Medical terminology is a language used to describe the human body, which would be essential in the medical career field. All you have to do is attend KCTC for the three hours that it consists of to earn these certifications.
Doctor Cary Stamas is the Director of College & Career Readiness and the Director of CTE – CEPD 32 at the Kent ISD. Stamas earned his masters degree from Central Michigan University and his PHD from Western Michigan University. Stamas has been a huge part of bringing KCTC to the high school but also other high schools in the county. Stamas appreciates that Northview students in particular come to the health career foundations program ready to dive in.
“You’ve already either identified health care as your interest. You’ve gone through career exploration, you’ve worked with Mavin, you’ve done a lot of those things that say health care is what I wanna do,” Stamas said.
Junior Ja’Sonti Crawford-Davis is currently enrolled in the first year of the health career foundations program. Crawford-Davis’s main goal was to become a nurse and she just went for it and entered the health career foundations course at KCTC.
“After I do my first year and my second year [KCTC] gives you a certificate that you can take into a hospital and use on your application,” Crawford-Davis said. “They’ll hire you or will most likely hire you depending on if they need you in the position or not.”
Crawford-Davis is excited to start her journey in the healthcare field. She is glad that KCTC has a program to assist her in her career path.
“I really like helping people and it’s always been my dream to become a nurse,” Crawford-Davis said. “So when I found out that [KCTC] had a health career program. I really just went for it and I love it.”
Students have the ability to get one or three medical terminology college credits right out of high school. If the student takes the health career foundations course, these two things are combined together. The student taking the course would do KCTC for two hours then they would have dual enrollment for an hour. The great thing about dual enrollment is that students can either do the work at the highschool or on their own time, so it can comply with most schedules, especially if a senior has open hours in their schedule. Guidance counselor Kasey Hagler feels this flexibility is key to the program’s success and draw for students.
“What we’re doing is there’s going to be dual enrollment credits in that KCTC course, so we’re giving students a dual enrollment hour as their third hour,” Hagler said. “So not only is the [health career foundations course] in [the highschool], but it’s only 2 hours, then students are getting college credit.”
Due to limited room of enrollment for the course at the KCTC campus, guidance counselor Kasey Hagler has been a key part of bringing the KCTC health career foundations to our students.
“The demand for career-focused and experiential learning has skyrocketed, locally as well as across the county and state,” Hagler said. “By bringing Health Career Foundations into our building, we are significantly increasing accessibility to this type of educational experience for our students.”
Hagler’s excited to provide the opportunity for junior and senior students to explore their interest in this potential career field. Despite this being a two year course, it is not exclusive to upcoming juniors, but the process is faster starting as a junior than a senior to get a certification right out of high school if they take it both years, but seniors have the option to finish the course over the summer after graduation.
“If [seniors] don’t know what to do with all the available hours in their schedule, and if they have interest in any career in healthcare. This is a fantastic opportunity,” Hagler said. “There is classroom work, don’t get me wrong, but the majority of it is doing and learning how to do those things [in the field].”
KCTC course designers are looking at possibly offering shorter credential courses offered both at KCTC and the highschool so senior students can get credits in a shorter period of time. Stamas agrees that shorter courses for seniors at KCTC is a good thing.
“If you’re a senior and graduating, then the other thing that we’re looking at is some very short credential courses that we can offer for graduates in [either] three weeks, five weeks, 10 weeks, [or] right after they graduate, So we’re looking at a lot of options,” Stamas said.
The attraction of KCTC to Northview as an extended campus comes from multiple viewpoints. Stamas sees two in particular.
“[KCTC] already has a lot of interaction with Northview. There’s good proximity, there’s good interest, there’s facility and there’s also a lot of different factors,” Stamas said. “Northview students have good interest, they have great participation and there’s a lot of positives to being able to bring that opportunity here.”
