Students at Mountain View High are set to learn from professionals at Stanford Medicine in the coming year as a part of the district’s growing Career Technical Education program. The burgeoning Patient Care pathway aims to guide high school students to a broad range of successful careers in the healthcare industry.
CTE program specialist Amber Woodward, work based learning coordinator Lynette Gillson and Dr. Jill Helms, professor of surgery at the Stanford School of Medicine, co-wrote a grant securing funding from the state to get the course off the ground.
“We really want to look at what kind of experiences we can provide our students through Stanford’s resources and to make sure that we’re really looking at creating a robust experience for our students,” Woodward said.
The Patient Care CTE pathway commenced with its first course earlier this year, with the capstone course to begin this fall. Woodward is working with Helms and Mountain View High staff to create the curriculum of the course, including planning field trips to Stanford Medicine for hands-on learning experiences.
While the capstone course is still being developed, students will begin to benefit from the partnership with Stanford Medicine this year. Students will learn directly from Stanford doctors and doctoral students at their first field trip in April. The plan is for students to explore multiple fields of medicine.
The results of a 2022 survey of Mountain View High students showed overwhelming interest in a healthcare career CTE offering. Up to 60% of students expressed an interest in pursuing a career in a healthcare field. Proven student interest bolstered by the real-life demand for healthcare workers in the Bay Area made the creation of such a program a no-brainer for administrators.
One difficult aspect of Woodward’s job as a CTE coordinator is communicating the value and diversity of CTE courses. She differentiates MVLA’s CTE pathways from the vocational education of yesteryear. Unlike programs of the past, MVLA’s pathways are not meant to purely be job training for a particular trade – instead, the courses are meant to offer academic rigor and experiential learning that prepares any individual student for what they want to do next, whether that is to earn a living wage out of high school, enroll in a four-year university or anything in between.
“It’s for all students, regardless of what their post-secondary career plans are,” Woodward said. “Whether they’re going to a UC all the way up to Stanford, or they’re planning to work right out of high school, CTE embodies that, and we make sure that we’re preparing them all for whatever they want to do.”
That said, the Stanford grant is designed to foster diversity and inclusion and to introduce historically under-represented and underserved high school students to the vast range of career options within the healthcare industry. The course is also a part of the district’s dual enrollment partnership with Foothill College, so students will earn 5.5 college credits.
The CTE program specialist position is funded by the MVLA Foundation. Since Woodward was hired in August 2022, the program has expanded more than two-fold – going from eight pathways prior to her arrival to 16 in the current school year, for a total of 22 classes.
Other new pathways commenced in the 2023-2024 school year include Work Exploratory, which aims to help students gain professional experience in their desired field and offers them the opportunity to earn credit for working a job outside of school to support themselves and their families; and Business Management, where students learn about marketing, operations, human resources and finance.
“We are excited to share this partnership with Stanford Medicine and feel fortunate to have this incredible resource in our community,” MVLA superintendent Nellie Meyer said. “Nationally and regionally, healthcare is a field where our students will find valuable careers and opportunities to learn technical and transferable skills.
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