By Jennifer Crain
Mariah Julian hopes to become a traveling nurse. Carly Carlson would like to end up at a children’s cancer research hospital. Kristen Hetrick wants to work in an emergency room. Chealcey Dennis is aiming to be a surgeon.
These young women aren’t undergrads in a health sciences program. They’re high school juniors and seniors enrolled in the Professional Medical Careers track at the New Market Skills Center in Tumwater.
Referred to as Career and Technical Education (CTE) centers, skills centers “provide high school students with the skills, leadership, and employability training needed for success in school and the working world.” Kris Blum, New Market’s Executive Director, says the Tumwater-based center has been in operation since 1986 and is one of 13 skills centers in Washington State.
The model is a long way from the vocational schools of the past. New Market has 15 career-specific tracks and serves close to 550 students. They also house a high school program for just over 100 students as well as YouthBuild, a collaboration with Community Youth Services.
In addition to medical careers training, career-track students can choose from programs in areas such as the culinary arts, natural resources, graphic design, pre-veterinary, business, criminal justice, and alternative energy.
Students from ten South Sound school districts attend career-track courses through the skills center, attending daily during either the morning or the afternoon sessions. They will launch a third session in February that will take place after school hours.
Blum says New Market students are diverse, directed, and invested. Participation at New Market is voluntary so student involvement and interest is high. Because they offer varied programs, she says they have plenty of room for students with an array of goals and learning styles.
Carly Carlson says she appreciates the hands-on nature of the Professional Medical Careers track.
“We came here to learn and get our CNA. As soon as we started, we got right to it,” she says. “We’ll have a two-year start, even before we graduate.”
Carlson is referring to one of the most practical aspects of the medical careers track, the ability to become a Certified Nursing Assistant, or CNA. The training, testing, and licensure process could cost thousands of dollars through a private program. But training at New Market Skills Center is tuition free. The center receives funding on a per-student basis.
Blum says many graduates who leave as licensed CNAs end up taking their first jobs in the local community, often in nursing homes. For the past two years, 100% of the students in the medical track have passed both the written and skills portions of the state test. Some places of employment, knowing the center’s reputation, even call to ask about prospective employees when they have open CNA positions.
A fast track into the workforce is what encourages many students to seek out New Market in the first place.
“I think one of the best things about the program is that you can start working almost immediately,” says Chealcey Dennis. “As a CNA, you can start working at a nursing home and learn your trade while going to school.”
Students in the Professional Medical Careers track, as in others, form a tight bond, the result of spending hours with the same group of students and the same instructor. Students remain in the same classroom for the entire two-and-a-half hour session, learning together the basics of health education. On the day I visited the school, they were in their nutrition unit. Students said they had already covered HIV/AIDS, the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, and CPR. Theory and book-learning are supplemented with a heavy dose of time in the skills lab, where they take turns role-playing as patient and provider, donning hospital gowns and taking blood pressure readings, for example. As is the case in other tracks, training is constantly updated based on the advice of industry experts.
Though gaining career-specific skills makes students marketable, the benefits of the skills center go far beyond immediate job prospects. Students can earn high school credits in English, math, science, or the fine arts through New Market’s programs. There are also opportunities to earn college credits. The center has a relationship with Bates Technical School, for instance, allowing students to earn credits toward a post-graduation certificate or degree.
Every track also focuses on universal, positive work habits to be sure students will have transferable qualities as future employees. Every track has a student leadership structure as well as committee work and student-run events, such as a blood drive run by the medical careers students. Through these kinds of interactions, students learn to be flexible, responsive workers who know how listen to a co-worker’s concerns, run a meeting using Robert’s Rules of Order, and to consign their cell phones to a pocket or purse during work hours.
One of Blum’s goals is to address misconceptions about career- and tech-related alternative education.
“There is a perception that a skills center is for those students who are not going off to college. And I would really like to break that myth,” she says. “There’s a spot for any student here to explore.”
A walk through the campus is enough to prove her point. The roomy Tumwater site is reminiscent of a community college campus, a collection of buildings surrounding a large common area lawn. Classrooms and lab areas are outfitted with industry-standard computers, ovens, and instruments. It feels like a place of learning and collaboration, a good place for young people to learn to fly at a time in their lives when they’re ready to test their wings.
Mariah Julian agrees, “It’s a good stepping stone for the real world.”
7299 New Market St. SW
Tumwater, WA 98501
360-570-4500
