“Is this blurry?” asked Anna Gurnik, 15, pointing to the eye chart while Matthew Matey, 6, who wears glasses, squinted at the chart and nodded. “Let’s try the row above then,” she said.
Gurnik has a solid start toward her career goal of becoming a dental hygienist. She is enrolled in the Battle Ground district’s health science careers program, which allows students to take a concentration of health science classes, get hands-on experience in health care and earn Clark College credit at no cost.
o Students take a concentration of health science classes, get hands-on experience in health care, including a 90-hour internship, and can earn Clark College credits at no cost, valued at about $1,500.
o Battle Ground High School: Contact Kelly Christel at Christel.Kelly@battlegroundps.org.
o Students take a concentration of health science classes, get hands-on experience in health care, including a 90-hour internship, and can earn Clark College credits at no cost, valued at about $1,500.
o Battle Ground High School: Contact Kelly Christel at Christel.Kelly@battlegroundps.org.
o Prairie High School: Contact Shari Pfeiffer at Pfeiffer.Shari@battlegroundps.org.
o Prairie High School: Contact Shari Pfeiffer at Pfeiffer.Shari@battlegroundps.org.
On Monday, she was one of five Battle Ground High School students performing vision screenings on students at Daybreak Primary School.
Battle Ground High School’s program, taught by Kelly Christel, has 120 students. Prairie High School’s program, taught by Shari Pfeiffer, has 70 students plus 26 in its advanced class. Both women are registered nurses with years of health care experience. Although their nursing careers were rewarding, both said they are committed to their roles as teachers inspiring teens to consider careers in health care.
Gurnik’s classmates screening the children also aspire to work in health care. Ruvim Tkachenko, 16, plans to become a registered nurse. Abigail Coleman, 15, wants to be a respiratory therapist. Allison Lorphanpaibul, 14, and Maria Arellano, 15, plan to become surgeons.
o High school seniors in Southwest Washington and Oregon at 132 public high schools in the Kaiser Permanente Northwest service area, spanning from Longview to Eugene, Ore., are eligible to apply.
o Awarded in $2,000, $5,000 or $10,000. The majority are for $2,000.
o Scholarship recipients in their second year of college are eligible to apply for one-time $2,000 scholarship and apply for paid summer internships at Kaiser Permanente.
o Deadline: 5 p.m. Jan. 14.
o Information: Contact Melissa Leonard at 503-813-4478 or kpnw-scholarships@kp.org
o The online application is available at kpnwscholarship.scholarsapply.org.
o High school seniors in Southwest Washington and Oregon at 132 public high schools in the Kaiser Permanente Northwest service area, spanning from Longview to Eugene, Ore., are eligible to apply.
o Awarded in $2,000, $5,000 or $10,000. The majority are for $2,000.
o Scholarship recipients in their second year of college are eligible to apply for one-time $2,000 scholarship and apply for paid summer internships at Kaiser Permanente.
o Deadline: 5 p.m. Jan. 14.
o Information: Contact Melissa Leonard at 503-813-4478 or kpnw-scholarships@kp.org
o The online application is available at kpnwscholarship.scholarsapply.org.
Jean Sangenito, the school nurse at Daybreak Primary School, supervised the vision screening, but the students screened the children for distance vision. Teens in the health science careers program help out with most of the vision screening in the district, Sangenito said.
A success story
Two years ago, Mario Andres Valenzuela, 20, was a Prairie High School senior enrolled in the health science careers program and assisting with vision screenings at Battle Ground’s primary schools. Valenzuela graduated from Prairie in 2013.
He currently is a sophomore at the University of Portland, where he is studying nursing.
Although Valenzuela will be the first person in his immediate family to complete a four-year college degree, his mom completed a medical certificate program and worked in the field.
“She always left my career decision up to me, but she influenced me with her experiences,” Valenzuela said Tuesday afternoon from a nursing classroom at the University of Portland. “When I was a kid, if I had a cut or a headache, she always explained the physiology behind it as she was helping me. She gave me her old medical textbooks, and I read her books and her notes.”
He said Pfeiffer helped him on his path to become a nurse, informing him about scholarships and different career options.
“Mario is a success story,” Pfeiffer said. “He really stood out because he cared about doing everything with excellence. He was one of my top 1 percent students. When I asked him what he wanted to do in life, he said something medical. Going to college was an impossibility for him. But I told him if he jumped through the hoops and kept doing things with excellence, he could go to college.”
Pfeiffer urged Valenzuela to apply for a Kaiser Permanente Health Care Career scholarship. He spent hours on the application and was selected.
By the end of his second year of college, Valenzuela will have only $4,000 in college debt, thanks to the Kaiser scholarship and many others, work study and other financial aid.
“I’m very proud of his work,” Pfeiffer said. “I loved being in critical care nursing for 25 years, but in teaching I feel like I’m making a difference. I’m helping kids choose what they want a do. Who they want to become.”
