Go to high school, be a firefighter

Published 6:00 pm Wednesday, February 5, 2003

The dream of growing up to be a firefighter will become more accessible to South Whidbey High School students next fall.

Pending program and funding approval from the state Office of Public Instruction, the school will offer a new course to train students as certified firefighters starting next school year.

The South Whidbey Board of Education gave the year-long course the go-ahead last week, designating it as a Career and Technical Education class.

Dennis Hunter, vocational director at the high school, said the curriculum is the same one taught across the nation to new firefighters.

“It will be a career preparatory class, similar to the sports medicine course offered now,” he said. “Students who do well will be employable as firefighters.”

High school firefighters are nothing new on South Whidbey. Since Fire District 3’s current chief, Don Smith, took his job in 1996, the district has had either a formal or informal high school firefighter training program.

The high school course was developed by Hunter with assistance from FD3 Assistant Chief Paul Busch and Battalion Chief Don Elliott.

“We are very excited about it,” said Elliott, who has been responsible for training high school firefighters for the past two years.

Currently, the training the fire district offers high school students allows them to become volunteer firefighters and assistants to emergency medical technicians. The new class takes that training a step further.

“Students who finish this class can be certified as a Firefighter 1, which makes them eligible for employment in paid departments,” Elliott said.

District officials recently stated that high school volunteers are on their way to becoming the backbone of the daytime volunteer force, since they are on the island at times when many adult firefighters are on the mainland at work.

Elliott said training firefighters at the high school will be a tremendous boost for FD3.

“It will give us more trained personnel who are ready to respond,” Elliott said.

It will also give students school credit for their learning and a leg up in the employment market, according to Hunter.

The money allocated for career and technical courses, known as enhancement funds, totals more per full-time student than basic education funding. This allows the school to not only offer courses like the firefighting course, but to purchase up-to-date equipment and pay for outside staff, such as the FD3 instructors who will be teaching the classroom portion of the new course.

The class will be based at the high school but will be a collaboration between the school’s vocational program and the fire district. Some of the training, including live fire training, will take place off campus. A maximum of 12 students in the class will be able to work as volunteer firefighters in addition to taking the class.