Students who took part in Kenton County Schools‘ work-based learning internships touted the effectiveness of the program this week to the district’s board of education.
The program pairs students with district professionals to give them a taste of what working in in-demand sectors, such as medicine and education, is like before they move into post-secondary education.
“Helping the school nurse Shelli Stowers at Scott [High School] with health office visits has really taught me a lot of medical terminology and abbreviations, which is super important to know [for] being a doctor in the future,” said Scott High School Senior and Class President Alexandra “Lexi” Giordano.
This year is the second year that Giordano has participated in the program. She has ambitions of becoming a pediatric gastroenterologist.
As an intern with the school nurse, she helps triage student patients as they come in throughout the day, learning basic medical skills like checking vitals, documenting symptoms and developing rapport with patients.
She also helps out with clerical tasks as needed. The experience allows her to see what working in the medical field may actually be like so that she can make a more informed decision about what to do once she graduates.
“I’ve seen a lot of situations that have been difficult and have required a lot of compassion and empathy and patience,” Giordano said, “and I know I’ll need to have that experience being a doctor in the future. So already, getting that experience such early on has just been so helpful. It really prepared me.”
The program has several different sub-specialties, all of which place interested students with professionals throughout the district.
Giordano participated in the nursing support track, which began in the 2021-2022 academic year. That track has had 37 student interns to date with nine student interns participating this year.
Other tracks include an English language instructional assistant program, which places students in classrooms to help them learn English as a foreign language, and a future educators internship program for students exploring careers in other educational specialties.
“It solidified that I wanted to be a teacher,” said Kaleah Harrison, who actually graduated from the district last year and now serves as an instructional assistant working with students with autism at River Ridge Elementary in Villa Hills. She said the experience spurned her to pursue training as a teacher specializing in learning and behavioral disorders.
Counterintuitively, even some of her bad experiences helped her make the decision. She touted the program as a way for interested students to explore—and possibly weed out—particular career pathways before they shell out a bunch of money for post-secondary education.
“I have good days, and the kids have bad days, and I come home with scrapes, cuts, bites,” Harrison said. “[If you don’t have] those real world experiences, and you just go in there, you’re not going to love it, and you just spent all this money for an education you’re not going to use. So, having that internship, having these different real world experiences help people finalize what they want to do with their education.”
In the end, the board of education voted to re-up the program for another academic year. The program costs about $140,424 from the district’s general fund and enables ten students to become interns in the nursing track, six students to become interns in the English language track and two students to become interns in the future educators track.
Superintendent Henry Webb commended the students who spoke, and said that he has hopes of expanding the program into other sectors.
“The Kentucky Department of Education right now talks a lot about vibrant learning,” Webb said. “I will tell you, there is no better vibrant learning experience than what these students are engaged in in our schools, and frankly, they’re given a lot to our school district, too. We’re very appreciative of you all.”