Adult schools give students a way to pursue healthcare careers
Yosemite Adult School vocational students get some hands-on experience when pursuing healthcare careers. Besides learning skills, students also get the benefit of industry connections when it comes time to get a job. Photo courtesy of Tony Misner.
When Shireen Franco was a freshman at California State University, Fresno, she intended to become a teacher. But after working with children at a summer job, she began having doubts.
“I came to realize that teaching wasn’t the best career choice for me,” Franco says.
“I had nurses in my family. My grandma was a nurse. My stepdad is a nurse,” she says. “So that’s when I thought about pursuing nursing.”
Her family, however, worried about the tuition. What if she spent money at a four-year university to major in nursing only to discover she did not like that profession either?
So Franco enrolled in Fresno Adult School to become a certified nursing assistant (CNA) through the school’s Career Technical Education (CTE) program.
“I decided to go that route to make sure I enjoyed it and that nursing was something that I’d want to pursue,” she says.
“I’m really glad about the route I took. It was the right thing for me.”
Shireen Franco, Nurse and Fresno Adult School graduate
Fresno Adult School is part of the Fresno Unified School District, which is a member of the State Center Adult Education Consortium.
Franco credits her instructors at Fresno Adult School for teaching her the fundamentals of patient care.
“They taught us lifting techniques, and how to move patients properly,” she says. “We learned there were certain ways we had to do the beds. It was all very detailed oriented.”
In just four months, Franco completed the CNA program and, with her certificate in hand, she enrolled in Fresno Adult School’s licensed vocational nursing (LVN) degree program.
“In fact, I started working on my LVN prerequisites while I was still in the CNA program,” says Franco. “That way, as soon as I finished, I was able to shoot right into the LVN program without too much of a delay. The teachers were amazing, and I felt supported by them.”
Franco says she is especially appreciative that the cost of tuition for the LVN program was so affordable.
In just a year, Franco completed the LVN program and landed a job as a school nurse for the Fresno Unified School District.
While working, Franco went on to earn a registered nursing degree at Fresno City College and then a bachelor’s in nursing from Fresno Pacific University.
Today, she is a pre- and post-operative nurse at a local surgery center. She credits Fresno Adult School with giving her the skills she needed early on to work as an LVN and pursue higher education.
“I felt really prepared and confident in what I was doing,” she says. “I’m really glad about the route I took. It was the right thing for me.”
For more information, visit https://statecenteraec.org/.
Written by Gail Allyn Short.
| Regions | Classes |
|---|---|
| Central California | Careers in Health Care |
