Colo. school district launches EMT career pathway

Thompson School District/Facebook

By Will Costello
Loveland Reporter-Herald

LOVELAND, Colo. — The Thompson School District’s latest career training opportunity is fully operational and serving students, adding another career pathway to the district’s career and technical education catalog.

The Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) pathway, the latest addition to the Thompson Career Campus, a career and technical education facility adjacent to Ferguson High School , was born in part out of an effort by Larimer County to address workforce readiness across the region.

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Leftover funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) were earmarked by the county for the task, and both Poudre and Thompson school districts received $1 million each to address critical workforce shortages in the area, later matched by grants from Bohemian Foundation, a local nonprofit.

Trained EMTs were identified as a crucial need in Larimer County, so the Thompson School District set about building a new wing onto the Career Campus earlier this year, completing construction ahead of schedule in June and beginning classes at the start of the school year.

The new wing was designed to meet several criteria that a more standard classroom could not, given the hands-on nature of the instruction for such a course.

“Obviously, we needed it to fit the skills component of first responders training,” said Thompson School District Director of Career and Technical Education Andy Stevens. “As you might imagine, if you’re an EMT, you have to practice CPR on dummies or transition people to gurneys. So we designed the space with that in mind.”

There is considerable space at the front of the classroom for such activities, along with relevant anatomical models for learning about the human body, while the actual classroom seating is more like a college lecture hall, with tiered rows of long tables facing a projector.

“It sets up really well, not only for instruction but also for other groups that might use the space,” Stevens said.

The idea, he continued, is that other district staff or partner organizations like Thompson Valley EMS could use the facility for training of their own, teaching CPR or first aid courses at night when the classroom is not in use by students.

While it contains lecture hall seating, the class is not a typical “book learning” course. The EMT pathway lasts two years, with much of the first year including basic anatomy and physiology instruction, while the second year begins to involve job shadowing and clinicals, but throughout the two-year course of study, hands-on learning is paramount.

Students on Wednesday morning were practicing doctor’s office staples like reflex testing with a small hammer strike to the knee and shining lights in each other’s eyes to check for abnormalities and observe pupil dilation.

Rhys Fincham, a junior at Mountain View High School, is taking the pathway in order to prepare for a career in firefighting, which requires an EMT certification in the state of Colorado.

“I’ve learned more here, honestly, than anywhere else,” he said. “You get to do stuff instead of just listening to lectures.”

His classmate, senior Justice Ybarra, also from Mountain View, agreed.

“It’s a lot easier to be hands-on rather than seeing a video one time,” he said.

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