By Uy Pham
Fountain Valley High School is introducing four new science career-based pathways, providing specific sets of classes based on potential career interests students may wish to explore.
The pathways include psychology, emergency medical response, health careers and nursing; all four synthesize existing courses and potential new offerings for students to explore various fields of study.
“Ultimately, these pathways are for students to pursue college and career-related goals, or a field that a student might want to be involved in later in life,” Assistant Principal of Guidance Casey Harelson said. “They either take this pathway to get a head start or sometimes they realize it’s not what they thought it was. They can be more efficient later and decide not to study that.”
The addition of the four pathways creates a total of 12 CTE and non-CTE pathways for students, with an AP Cybersecurity pilot two-year pathway also being introduced through The College Board’s new Career Kickstart initiative. Harelson confirmed that the non-CTE designation will not affect the course’s instruction.
“It makes it more student and family-friendly because you essentially have a menu of career interest-related options, and we have packaged them in a way that makes sense with our courses,” Harelson said. “This is instead of relying on families and students to figure out how to piece these courses together in a way that makes sense.”
Emergency response is the only of the four new pathways to be a CTE pathway, while the other three are considered non-CTE pathways. The nursing pathway involves an opportunity for dual enrollment, where students can receive both high school and college credit through Golden West College for passing the classes.
It’s important to note that the courses are only offered if enough students are interested in taking and requesting the respective pathways.
“I always added the caveat that even if we do everything right in the course adoption and creation of a pathway, we have to have enough authentic student demand,” Harelson said. “If we don’t have authentic student demand, it’s not going to happen … It’s important that we keep what students actually want at the forefront of what we’re offering.”
Psychology
The psychology pathway combines courses already offered in the science, history and consumer and family studies departments. First-year students take either Mindsets for Success or Developmental Child Psychology, and second-year students advance to either Psychology or AP Psychology.
Developmental Child Psychology focuses on introducing students to practical, personal and professional perspectives regarding how infants’ personalities and motivations are developed by their environment. With a goal of improving students’ health and inner peace, Mindset for Success helps students develop mindfulness practices to address and reflect on potential stress and high emotions in their lives.
Both Psychology and AP Psychology cover various fields of psychology by providing students with the foundational knowledge of why humans believe, think or act in certain ways throughout their environments.
According to Harelson, the reason for this pathway originated from the teachers of these courses deciding to organize a course order for students interested in psychology.
“Psychology is an example of courses we already have. We had the courses, but not guidance for families to take these classes in,” Harelson said. “We felt that it’s important if a student is interested in psychology, we should make the path a little clearer for them … It creates a logical, nice two-year path for students to deeply explore psychology.”
Emergency Response
The emergency response pathway brings back a highly demanded course for students by filling the void left by the Huntington Beach Union High School District’s (HBUHSD) decision to withdraw from Coastline ROP two years ago. Originally, Coastline ROP existed as a partnership for HBUHSD students to take career-oriented courses such as emergency response.
For this pathway, students will take Emergency Medical Response in their first year. Afterward, they will advance to the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) course, supplemented with an existing science course in either physiology, sports medicine or forensic science. It is recommended students take the Medical Careers course before beginning this pathway.
“We have a couple of classes that in our science department that are related [and] working with the department, we were able to come up with pairings of classes to supplement this pathway,” Harelson said. “It would make sense for a student interested in being an EMT to take either physiology or sports medicine as well.”
Students interested in learning more information about the course details and instructions should contact Medical Careers teacher Jared Hartel (jhartel@hbuhsd.edu) in Room 202. Hartel is a licensed EMT with 14 years of experience in the field, including at Knott’s Berry Farm and NASCAR.
Health Careers
The health careers pathway combines existing FVHS classes into an organized pathway for students interested in careers in the healthcare industry.
“The health careers pathway originated from us recognizing that we have courses already in our science department related to health careers,” Harelson said. “It would make sense to package these courses as a pathway for students … They’re clearly pursuing a sequence of elective health-related classes.”
Students are recommended to begin with the medical careers class before taking at least two of the following courses: physiology, sports medicine or forensics.
The medical careers class was introduced as an alternative course after the discontinuation of the Pharmacy Technology ROP hosted at FVHS.
“We think any students interested in health careers and knows that during the younger half of high school should take the medical careers class because it’s a great way to learn about all these different career routes,” Harelson said. “If you have a vague idea that you might be interested in something for the medical realm, but there are so many jobs and it’s confusing — take our medical careers class.”
Nursing
In a partnership with Golden West College’s premier nursing program and the Dean of Nursing, students interested in the healthcare field can take a two-year pathway to receive both high school and college students.
As of 2023, Golden West College has expanded the size of its nursing program, increased clinical training opportunities through local partnerships, and negotiated pathways toward bachelor’s degrees.
“This pathway will be a great start for students heading toward nursing or healthcare, and even if students don’t choose nursing, these are great courses to take,” Harelson said. “For students who want to go to medical school to be a doctor or physician assistant, these kinds of courses would matter on your transcript.”
Students will start by taking physiology, an existing course at FVHS that introduces how the human body functions through its various systems. In their second year, students will take Nursing G101: Introduction to Nursing in the first semester and Nursing G103: Medical Terminology in the second semester.
These college classes are paired with other high school science classes students would take.
“Nursing is a pretty competitive field, so students heading in that direction will need to continue with conventional science as well,” Harelson said. “You would take a high school science class in the regular part of your school day, and you would take the nursing class either in the morning or afternoon.”
