Va Hospital Fills Shadle Teens’ Training Prescription

Austin Emory is not a four-year university kind of guy and, with his snowboarder haircut and Bill Murray wit, the Shadle Park senior doesn’t consider the military a serious option.

So when he heard in September about a vocational program at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, he jumped at the chance. Four months later, Emory has learned to lay fiber optic cables for the hospital maintenance department. This is a skill he could easily turn into a job after graduation.

With a few classes at a community college, he could earn the $20 per hour wage of a skilled craftsman, his boss says.

“This just gives me some optional direction,” said Emory, his “Co-ed Naked Baseball” hat turned backward as he feels the tiny glass fiber optic wire with his finger tips. “I’m learning what I would learn in college, plus getting hands-on training.”

Through the Career Focus program at Shadle Park High School, students receive credit to spend three or four hours every school day at the veterans hospital on West Wellesley. They learn the ins and outs of a job they choose.

The work possibilities range from nurse’s assistant to computer technician to maintenance worker, and the program is open to both college-bound and career-oriented students.

Only seven students are participating this year, a low figure that baffles Austin and other students working at the hospital.

Spokane School District 81 plans to open the program to all high schools next year, and Mead High School will send students to the hospital for the second semester.

Shadle Park junior Camilla Grealey has wanted to be a doctor since she was 4, so she spends about 20 hours a week in the hospital, running errands and helping patients.

Grealey saw nurses and doctors respond to a “code blue” when a patient suffered a heart attack. When the patient died, Grealey comforted family members.

“You realize this is real, not fake,” said Grealey. “This is not like ‘ER’.”

The program represents a growing movement in public schools to tailor classes to the needs of employers. Businesses have been telling educators and legislators for years that students are ill prepared for the workplace.

Partly because of those complaints, “school-to-work” curriculum requirements were included in an education reform law passed in 1992.

“Students see when they get out and don’t have training … they don’t have a job,” said Clyde Rasmussen, District 81 vocational director. “With this, they get a real understanding what it’s like in the workplace.”

The brainchild of Career Focus is VA Medical Center administrator Ron Porcio. He has been the Johnny Appleseed of the program, spreading it to high schools in southern Oregon and Vancouver as he has been transferred within the Veterans Affairs Department.

He says the hospital benefits as much as the students. The hospital receives free labor while administrators have a year to assess the students as potential workers.

“By putting student from class to a real life situation, they bring the enthusiasm, curiosity and energy that really enhances the work force here,” said Porcio.

The students also get to know veterans. Grealey’s grandfather was a veteran who was treated at the hospital. He died before she could hear his stories.

Last week, she treated a patient who served on a Navy ship during World War II with her grandfather.

“Visiting with the patients is fun because do they tell stories,” said Grealey.

Porcio said the hospital likes to hire the students as temporary workers during holidays or summers once they know their abilities.

Emory is earning $6 a hour working two 40-hour weeks during the Christmas break. He sees himself working for 20 years and retiring with a pension at age 38.

Grealey plans to go to college, although she is not sure where. She says she now knows the difficulties and sacrifices of the medical profession and still wants to be a doctor.

“She has a more realistic outlook on life because she can combine her dreams and aspirations with workable goals,” said her supervisor, Kathleen Russell.

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