Hillhouse Opens Pathway To Health Careers

Starting this fall, Hillhouse students will be able to take enough biology, terminology and lab courses to skip a year of college — or enter the workforce right away in high-paying jobs.

“What if I told you that you could halve the cost of college? Would that be a good deal?” asked Hillhouse Principal Glen Worthy.

Worthy pitched the new Health Careers Academy Pathway (H‑CAP) to eighth graders at Edgewood Creative Thinking through STEAM Magnet School on this past Friday morning.

None of the students in the cafeteria responded to Worthy’s question. The eighth graders sat quietly behind their masks and the clear, plastic dividers at their tables.

“Come on, people, wake up!” Worthy said, to some laughter.

Worthy sees the new program as the kind of wake-up opportunity he needed as a high schooler. His mother was a cook; his father was a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital. Worthy knew that he wanted a middle-class life with a house and a lawn mower, so he became the first in his family to go to college. In college, though, he had no idea what he wanted to do. He struggled and graduated in five and a half years, instead of the standard four.

Working at a group home after college, he realized that his calling was to work with children. When he went back to school with this goal in mind, he was able to finish his two-year master’s degree right on time.

“I’m presenting this to you to take away some of the barriers I had,” Worthy said.

Worthy began talking about the potential program idea with Gateway Community College and Assistant Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans when she took over supervision of Hillhouse. Redd-Hannans helped finalize the program and figure out how the district would pay for it, with a combination of federal Title I, Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief and American Rescue Plan dollars. The first grant is one of the district’s funding streams. The latter two are coronavirus relief.

The first cohort of students will include up to 25 incoming Hillhouse ninth graders. These students are applying now for the program and are scheduled to hear by June 11 whether they get in. Over the course of four years, the district will spend $340,000 on the program coordinator, Gateway classes and textbooks.

Worthy focused in on a medical preparation program because the field is growing so rapidly. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that there will be 2.4 million new jobs in the field by 2029, a much higher growth rate than average.

Eighth grader Kennedy Lynch (at far right in photo) listened carefully to the presentation. She has been deciding between Hillhouse and Wilbur Cross High School. She said that the H‑CAP presentation pushed her a little more towards Hillhouse.

The 13-year-old is interested in the healthcare field, partially thanks to her mother’s encouragement. Her mother, Lauren Lynch, is a psychiatric nurse with a doctorate in theology (she’s passionate about caring for the full person, she explained).

When Lauren Lynch was studying to become a nurse four or five years ago, she would quiz her children on anatomy. The exercise would help her remember her lessons and teach her children at the same time.

Lynch noticed that her younger two children would forget the terms fairly quickly. Kennedy did not.

“I could still ask her to this day, ​‘What’s this bone on the back of the skull?’ She remembered all of it. I thought that was very impressive, even though some of names in medicine and the human body are quite elongated. They are not words one would hear on a regular basis,” Lynch said. ​“She could tell you in-depth even what it’s functionality was.”

Since Kennedy was so adept at science and medicine, Lynch encouraged her to consider a career in health care. Lynch went to Cross herself. After hearing about Hillhouse’s new program though, she is all on board with her daughter attending the rival school.

In the H‑CAP program, Kennedy would take both the classes she is required to take to graduate from Hillhouse and specific courses for the H‑CAP students. Kennedy would start taking some classes at Gateway in her junior year and would be entirely on Gateway’s campus her senior year.

In her junior year, she would also have the option of specializing in one of four professional tracks, including exercise science, nutrition, surgical technology and radiography.

As Worthy continued to ask questions to the eighth graders during his presentation, those paying close attention started to murmur answers.

College Before College Coordinator Dominique Argo vocalized a question for an anonymous student who was too embarrassed to ask out loud: Do you have to maintain good grades in the program?

Worthy responded that yes, it’s a rigorous program. The planners have also built in extra support to make sure the students in the cohort are successful.

“If you are a serious student, this is for you. We are not looking for the smartest student. We’re looking for motivated kids,” Worthy said.

Argo has seen many success stories among students at Hillhouse and other schools who take some college classes before they graduate. She offered the example of one student who jumped a year and a half ahead in the University of Connecticut’s nursing program, thanks to college-level courses she took in high school. Because of that jump, she was able to fill nursing gaps at Yale New Haven Health during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We’re hoping for many more of those stories,” Argo said.

Rising Hillhouse ninth graders interested in H‑CAP can .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for an application.