A group of Ridgeview High students will have their feet in the door of the nursing profession by the time they graduate high school.

The school will start its certified nursing assistant classes the first week of December. Students who successfully complete the program will get a CNA 1 license after two terms, allowing them to serve patients and residents at locations like nursing homes as soon as they graduate high school.

“There is so much opportunity,” said Donna Gilmore, the CNA teacher. “It’s not just what we have here locally, it’s what they can do at the state and national level.”

The CNA program received 80 applications from Ridgeview juniors and seniors, said Gilmore, who has been Ridgeview’s school nurse the past four years. Of those, 30 were selected to join a health occupations class in the current fall term. Because of the required teacher-student ratio, only 20 will take the final CNA classes.

Senior Olivia Bowman, 17, is among those who plan to enter the CNA program. She has enjoyed the health occupations class, so far, because it allows students to see presentations from people in various medical fields. They’ve job shadowed AirLink ambulance crews, been stationed on a medical-surgical floor and checked out a pathology lab.

“It’s been really interesting,” she said. “It’s been fun to learn the breakdown of anatomy.”

But the best is yet to come with the CNA studies. With vacancies in the area for CNA jobs, Bowman is one of many students who plans to work as a nursing assistant immediately after graduating, while studying simultaneously to be a registered nurse.

Fellow senior Kailee Dyer, 17, said the classes are also helping her figure out the best way to go about getting her nursing degree. Working as a CNA will also help her pay for college.

“It means a lot because I get a head start,” she said. “Right out of high school, I can work in nursing homes, go to school and become an RN.”

The Redmond School District formerly offered CNA classes at Redmond High, but those stopped years ago after the teacher retired, Gilmore said. Ridgeview, which opened in 2012, was built with space designed for CNA labs, but it wasn’t used until this year.

The program has sponsors that have provided hospital beds and bedside tables, vital sign machines, electronic scales and wheelchairs. It also works closely with Central Oregon Community College.

“It’s a huge project, but it’s so worthwhile,” Gilmore said. “Our goal is that we just have students that are passionate about the career they have chosen.”

The CNA program follows State Board of Nursing standards, with students required to pass a state exam at the end of the class to receive a license.

Gilmore expects the final CNA class roster to be mostly seniors, with juniors in the health occupations class able to take the CNA program next year.

In the winter term, CNA students will learn on campus for one class period each day, split between lecture and lab work. They will use mannequins to learn about important tasks like checking patient vital signs.

In the spring term, students will spend five hours a day, four days a week helping at Regency assisted living homes in Redmond and Prineville. There, they will take vital signs on residents, help feed them and change linens.

At the end of the program, students return to Ridgeview for a refresher on the skills required for nursing assistants.

The CNA and health occupations classes are also valuable in less tangible ways, with students able to learn what to do and not do from other nurses.

“You see a lot of nurses who don’t have great composure or bedside manner,” Olivia said.

Gilmore sees a great love of nursing in her students.

“I feel Olivia would work very well with patients and residents in health care facilities,” she said.

The program is beneficial to both students and the community, Gilmore said.

“It gives our students a quick job placement within the area, and it fills a need,” she said.

— Reporter: 541-548-2186, gfolsom@redmondspokesman.com