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Jake Armstrong and Rylee Penny are students in the emergency services program at SSHS. Staff photo by Miranda Caddell
• Editor’s Note: This is the first part in a 4-part series celebrating Career and Technical Education Month.
Sulphur Springs High School students are offered a lot of unique opportunities through the Career and Technical Education (CTE) program.
One program offered is their emergency services - fire program.
“Sulphur Springs High School has partnered with Fire in Texas to offer students an opportunity to become a certified firefighter through the Emergency Services program of study,” said CTE director Jenny Arledge.
“The school coordinates with the fire department here in Sulphur Springs and we learn what it’s like to be a firefighter, and we get our certificate at the end,” said SSHS junior Rylee Penny. “There's two parts: you start in 11th grade and you do the fire academy, and in 12th grade, you do the EMS portion of it. By then your certificate will be finished and you’ll be certified.”
After completing the fire program, students complete a physical test.
“We go out and we do our skills and that determines whether or not we become a firefighter,” said Penny.
“I talked to a bunch of my friends who already graduated, and they said that they wish that they could have done this when they were in here,” said Jake Armstrong, also a junior at SSHS. “We go through the program here at the school, and then at the end of school there’s a two-week period for the skills, and you get that done and you take your state, and you pass your state and then next you do your EMT.”
With these certifications, SSHS graduates who complete the program can begin their career right after high school. For more information regarding CTE at SSHS, visit http://schools.ssisd.net/page/sshs.careertech.