About 25 Rockford High School seniors are taking college courses within Grand Valley's health professions program without leaving their school.
The partnership between Grand Valley and the school district was announced in April and the first group of students to take advantage of the program began taking classes in August.
RHS students who are interested in health care careers can apply to enroll in the two courses — Medical Terminology and Introduction to Health Care — in the Allied Health Science bachelor's degree program that are offered at the high school.
Senior Ginger Dean has aspirations to become a pediatric nurse and said she enrolled in the program to gain a general understanding of medical terminology.
"People who are working in health care who I have talked to about this said they wish they could have done this in high school before they got to college," Dean said.
The courses are taught three days a week by faculty members Chad Sutliffe and Julie Alles-Grice, with support and discussion sessions led by RHS teacher Rick Folcik.
Sutliffe, who lives in Rockford, said the first year of the program is going well. "In addition to learning college-level material, the students are getting exposure to a wide variety of health care careers," he said.
The early college program is supported by the Rockford Education Foundation.
Jean Nagelkerk, vice provost for Health, said it works to a student's advantage to take college credits early. "This gives high school students an opportunity to explore health as a career and to get a leg up on their first semester of college, with six credits," Nagelkerk said.
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