Program Setting Falls Church High Students on the Path to Saving Lives

For more than 50 students this year, the on the job training has started already before they ever walk across the stage for graduation.

For 90 minutes a day, students enrolled in the Fire and Emergency Medical Sciences class in the Falls Church High Academy learn about life saving techniques. It’s the only such program within Fairfax County Public Schools. In the program’s eight years, Penny Kelly, the program’s instructor, said about 50 percent of her students work with volunteer fire departments nationwide and another 25 percent of students from the program venture into professional emergency responder careers.

“We started out with 17 students and now we’re at 53,” Kelly said Tuesday during her second class of the day. She teaches three daily classes. “Our goal was to be able to expand to the western part of the county.”

Students earn two elective credits for their work in the class and must be at least a junior to be a part of the program. Local professional and volunteer fire departments have donated retired equipment to the program so students get to learn their uses and become familiar with them. Students also get to ride along in Fairfax County Fire and Rescue ambulances on medical runs and get to tour the cadaver lab at Northern Virginia Community College. Kelly said students earn their American Heart Association Healthcare Provider Certification, Emergency Medical Technician Certification and their Community Emergency Response Certification. Students can also certifications in child abuse, blood born pathogens and a certification in hazardous material awareness.

In 1989 while out driving, Kelly, a registered nurse, came upon an accident in Fauquier County. It was a two-car wreck that left one of the vehicles upside down. Kelly said she tried to administer life saving techniques to a woman trapped inside one of the cars but it was already too late. She said that day was a turning point in her life as she became interested in becoming an EMT.

She earned her EMT certification at a volunteer fire department in Fauquier County and not long after, began teaching an emergency medicine course to high school students in that county. That lasted for 10-years until she was recruited to teach the same course at FCHS. Kelly, the Northern Virginia EMS Council Outstanding EMS Pre-Hospital Educator of the Year in 2010, said she enjoys teaching the high school students and wishes she would have gotten involved with teaching sooner.

“If I can get them into the back of an ambulance, they’re hooked,” she said.

Michael Foster is certain he wants to become a medic but not with a fire department. Instead he wants to save lives in the United States Navy. Foster, 17, a junior, works with the Greater Springfield Volunteer Fire Department when he’s not in school. Early on in life, he said he always wanted to be a firefighter until his sister, an EMT in Charlottesville, started talking to him about a career in that field. A first year student in the program, Foster said Kelly is a great teacher and interacts well with the students in it.

“I think it’s a really good program because it can give students a head start in a career,” Foster said.

Tuesday’s classes focused on labor and delivery. Kelly showed videos of childbirths by an elephant and a human that drew cringes from some students while others closed one eye and apprehensively looked on with the other. Kelly said exposing students to situations they may come in contact with as professionals is her goal.

In January, Kelly spoke at the International Association of Fire Fighters’ Human Relations Conference in Florida. Her area of speaking: attracting women and minorities to the fire service.

Courtney Royston, a junior at the school, said Kelly’s class helped her decide what she wants to do for a career. Royston, 16, said she wants to be a medic or nurse in the U.S. Army. Classmate and basketball player Jackie Beathea said she wants to be an EMT after she gets a degree. Beathea, 17, a senior is heading to Southern Connecticut State University next fall on a basketball scholarship.

“I want to help people and help my community,” Beathea said.

Jill Burrer, a career experiences specialist with the Falls Church High Academy said students who go through the program learn how they can help their community. Because Kelly keeps in contact with former students who go into emergency responder careers, those students come back to lend their professional experiences to current students, Burrer said.

“It’s great hands on experience,” Burrer said. “Instead of just learning in the classroom they’re going through real life experiences.”