CHSP seeks to provide comprehensive foundations in health science and medical skills while connecting with industry partners in our community. Our collaborative and applied approach supports and celebrates a diversity of student learners and provides customized, personalized career counseling leading to their success in health care and STEM.
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Keri Pilgrim Ricker has enjoyed a 11-year career in public education teaching all levels of biological sciences. Guided by a quote by Maya Angelou, “In diversity there is beauty and there is strength,” her courses are designed to highlight the importance of not only biological diversity, but diversity of thought, people, ideas, and narratives. Keri has contributed to the roll out of the NGSS science standards as a coauthor of the COSA iTUNES project, creating a state standard to NGSS crosswalk with resources and tools to support developing science teachers. In 2014, Keri focused on CTE programming as an inroad to promote more diverse and equitable representation in STEM. She received her endorsement in CTE Health Services and began to redesign courses in Anatomy and Physiology, Medical Terminology, and Health Occupations to engage and provide access to underserved and underrepresented populations in her school. Her work with students and her Equity Leadership Team identified barriers to student enrollment, participation, and success in STEM and CTE. She has presented her findings at the OSTA and NWSJ conference and created school initiatives that increased enrollment and success of students of color and of “at risk” populations. She has worked to create a collaborative network of healthcare professionals, non-profits, families, and post-secondary institutions to create complex and realistic healthcare simulation units designed to target student career interests and facilitates the connection of each student with a professional mentor in their chosen field.
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CTE stands for Career & Technical Education. Such programs provide students to apply skills in mathematics, language arts, economics/civics, science, and the arts all within the context of career pathway. These are not strictly elective courses but often a summative application of national and state content standards across multiple disciplines. Their value is in providing authentic context and meaning to the hard work of student learning. CTE programs are not just for students intending to directly enter the trades and workforce. They host and prepare a diversity of learners for entry into the workforce and/or post-secondary institutions. CTE programs are linked with marked increases in graduation rates and have motivated students to persevere in some of the most rigorous courses despite the most challenging of circumstances. CHSP benefits from an over 40 year tradition of Health and Science Career Technical programming preparing students to enter workforce ready to participate as culturally and technically competent leaders in a vast range of health, medical, and STEM careers.
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