Alamo Academies Opens New Health Professions Academy 13 July 2009 with 16 Potential Future Registered Nurses

THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS ACADEMY

The Alamo Area Academies, the Alamo Colleges, the St. Philip’s College Licensed Vocational Nursing (LVN) Program, the Floresville Independent School District, the San Antonio Independent School District, the City of San Antonio, and major employers in the health care industry (San Antonio’s largest) have joined together to create a new early college technical academy for high school juniors and seniors interested in pursuing careers in the health professions. Modeled on the existing Academies in aerospace, information technology and manufacturing technology, the Health Professions Academy will provide students an early college experience and a direct pathway into well-paid careers in high-demand occupations. The HPA will begin with nursing, enrolling students in the St. Philip’s College LVN Program, but will eventually offer programs in other allied health fields, perhaps as early as 2010.

The HPA will open in the summer of 2009 as a pilot program with eight students from Edison High School who will take their nursing instruction at the Martin Luther King Campus of St. Philip’s College. These students will be placed as interns the following summer in the Methodist Healthcare System, the CHRISTUS Santa Rosa system and at Morningside Ministries. A second group of eight students at Floresville High School will also receive instruction from the St. Philip’s College LVN Program, some of which will be delivered by distance learning in concert with the Edison High School students. The Floresville High School students will be placed as interns at the Connolly Memorial Medical Center in Floresville.

In the summer of 2010, other schools will be eligible to send students to the program as the capacity of the entering class in San Antonio increases to 24 students, with the possibility of a second distance-learning class. To provide internships for this larger class, additional employers will join the program during the summer of 2011.

Benefits to Students and Parents

• Students will earn approximately 35 hours of college credit during their junior and senior years of high school at no cost to them or their families. Twelve college credit hours will be earned during the summer after high school graduation to complete the program, with scholarships and financial aid available for eligible students.
• They will be taking college courses for half the day during their junior and senior years, providing them a real college experience shared by few other high school students.
• They will have a paid summer internship with a health care provider.
• They will be in an articulated career pipeline that will make them Certified Nursing Assistants by the summer after their junior year of high school, and Licensed Vocational Nurses by the end of the summer following their senior year. Qualified graduates of the program will then have the opportunity to apply for entry into the Alamo Colleges’ Professional Nursing (LVN-to-ADN) Program. The transition from the St. Philip’s LVN Program to completion of the (LVN-to-ADN) Program takes approximately 16 months for full-time students. Successful candidates will have the opportunity to become a registered nurse and sit for the NCLEX-RN licensure examination.