By Christine Garcia & Kevin Sears
Fountain Valley High School has officially started a new chapter of the Health Occupation Students of America (HOSA) as an extension to the Career and Technical Student Organization pathway (CTSO) for the 2025-2026 school year. HOSA is a nationally recognized organization that prepares students for futures in the medical and health science fields.
With the growing interest to initiate a HOSA program in the Huntington Beach Unified High School District (HBUHSD), the district decided to recruit advisor Jared Hartel, who previously started HOSA programs in multiple school districts.
“[I was] mainly brought in to teach these classes … I had done HOSA programs for [the] Newport Mesa Unified School District and Garden Grove Unified School District,” Hartel said. “And so when [HBUHSD was] trying to start a medical program—having that [medical program] was a benefit, because the district wants to have a Career Technical Student Organization.”
HOSA is a part of the CTSO pathway, which means that it directly supports students enrolled in the Career and Technical Education courses (CTE) at FVHS. Courses in this pathway include physiology, Medical Careers, Emergency Medical Responder (EMR), Sports Medicine and Forensic science. Hartel confirmed that the district will add an Emergency Medical Technician class as another pathway for the 2026-2027 school year at FVHS.
This chapter, which debuted this spring, aims to provide students with opportunities to explore health-related careers and develop leadership skills, while competing in statewide healthcare competitions.
In order for a student to compete for FVHS’ HOSA chapter, they must be enrolled in one of the CTE courses. However, students who aren’t in these classes and would still like to join HOSA can attend socials or volunteer—which do not count as official HOSA events.
“The main overarching idea of HOSA is the end of the year conference … called [the] State Leadership Conference (SLC),” President of FVHS’ HOSA Sophia Lu said. “This is where all the HOSA clubs in California … [attend these SLCs to take part in] guest workshops, and they also have competitions for HOSA members to compete in. “And it’s really good if you get an award, because [HOSA is a] … renowned organization and it’s [recognized] internationally and through the US.”
There are about 90 different events of the competition that can be categorized under science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects, secondary/collegiate events, health professions events, emergency preparedness events, leadership events and teamwork events. As of right now, the board of HOSA wants to focus on the Emergency Medical Response, as that is what Hartel specializes in.
When it comes to preparing for the conferences, the current executive committee will prepare afterschool presentations on the subjects for the first three months. It would be like a two-hour study group for practicing and reviewing with other members.
Not only do they go to competitions and afterschool training, they hope to host workshops to teach others about cardiopulmonary resuscitation or “stop-bleeding” kits.
As FVHS continues to expand its STEM and career classes, the new HOSA chapter represents a major step forward in preparing students for life beyond high school. The club is open to all grade levels and new member recruitment is set to begin again in the fall. Students would be accepted through an application process if they are already enrolled in the CTE pathway. However, those who are not taking the pathway need to discuss with their counselor about being put into a class to apply for the club.
“[Students] should join HOSA because it’s a really great opportunity to learn more about the medical pathway—especially since we’re in need of a lot of medical professionals internationally,” Lu said. “There’s not a lot of competition or enough rigor of a program for us to like and so joining HOSA really puts you out there.”
