We had morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome,
welcome, and just like that, it's time for part two of our community
connection right here on K one, the one you trust, and we are
talking to our ladies here from a Try County Tech. And by goodness sakes,
what don't you do at Try County Tech? Every time I get a
guest in here, Cray County texts, Oh, we're doing something new,
all right, Okay, So we're kind of starting at the beginning here because
one of the first things that Try County Tech had was the nursing program,
and now we're building on it. So what we have going on here we
have Kevy Allen and Militia low Rich and they're from their practical nursing department,
and goodness sakes, we've got a lot to cover here. In just a
little bit. Let's talk about the pn August Cohort application. I take it
that's practical nurse that is practical nursing. Yes, and if you are interested
in starting in the fall, which would be in August, start our application
deadline is March fifteenth, so that's coming up. It's an online application and
there's quite a bit to it. So if you're really interested, check it
out and see what all their requirements are and get started on that now.
Because it's a ten month program and we actually just celebrated our last group in
December had one hundred percent pass rate on their incleex boards. Nice. Yeah,
so it's really great, very excited about that. Yeah. I'm going
to brag a little bit here because I have one daughter who's a nurse and
she's a hospice nurse. And then I have another daughter who decided, well
big says, I'm going to up yet she's now going to be a physician's
assistant. So I kind of live in your world a little bit, at
least I paid for your world atle bit with those two. Can you tell
us a little bit about the program overview. Yes, as far as the
program and our students, it is a ten month program, as Melissa was
saying, and the cost it's very affordable. It's about forty five hundred dollars
and we do have in house financial assistants available for the students that qualify,
and that's nearly all of our practical nursing students. You do have to have
your CNA as a prerequisite to get into the program and we offer that at
Tri County, so if you need help getting that, we can hook you
up on that. As far as the coursework goes, we divide that program
out into two semesters. The first semester which is where Melissa teaches, and
I can let her talk a little bit about that. The curriculum there,
yep. So you will go into intro to Nursing Fundamentals and Nursing, which
are the courses that I teach, and then we also have pharmacology and ivy
therapy, AMP and medical terminology, and then of course there's clinical courses in
the first semester as well. Oh my goodness, tink, that's love to
cover. Yeah, in just five months. Yes, then the students will
they'll move over into the second semester of the program and we will cover medical,
surgical, nursing, pediatrics, ob obstetrics, maternial child We also cover
mental health and then clinical. So it's a rigorous program, but they get
a lot of experience. You know, what everyone I've talked to is that's
been into any sort of medical program, They're like, well, when you're
going to take the gloves off, let's get it off. Let's go and
they they're they're not afraid. They're they're not afraid. Some of the might
be a bit hesitant at first. Once they again, it's like, I
gotta know more, I got to learn more. How do I do this?
How do I do this? It's almost like you got to tug them
on the back of the sugar home. So do else catch up? Yeah,
but it just shows just that that hunger for knowledge, that hunger getting
it right, that so much of an element of the personality of the people
involved are going into this particular a field. Now I understand that we've got
a nice, a nice one point six million dollars awarded to the school.
WHOA, how's that working for you? We did, in response to the
nursing shortage, Try County Tech applied for an ARPA grant that we received and
it's going to allow us to expand our nursing program essentially, and we have
been approved by the Board of Nursing just last month to begin a new program
that'll be called the Nursing Bridge Program. This is big, folks, So
this one's pretty neat. It's going to be a conduit for our high school
students to be able to enter our adult practical nursing program. So we're looking
for applicants in the nursing program all the time, but this will be a
great way for those high school students that are interested. The new program,
the Nursing Bridge. The students they will start their junior year, they're going
to complete our Nursing Assistant program that we've had for a long time at Tri
County Tech. They'll get their CNA and intro an introduction to the field.
Then their senior year they will start the Nursing Bridge curriculum and they essentially they
complete that first semester of the PM program that we were talking about. They
do that over the course of their senior year. So when they graduate high
school, they'll come back to us that August, They'll have about six months
of curriculum luck, and then they're done in December, they graduate and they
can have their LPN license. Wow, well that's just pretty darn good thinking,
that's what that is, because how many kids would have to wait maybe
an extra semester or boo semesters otherwise quite a few. And you know,
and then Try County Tech is so great at making sure that the average student
walks out without any debt right they are. I don't know how you do
that, but good on you. Now this a bridge thing is really something
else. This is very exciting. So I understand that. You know,
there are high school students who have probably been hitting on your email box,
calling you on the phone, maybe even trying to get some face to face
time with both of you here kind of think, you know, how do
we how do we get this? How do we get the wheels going?
And really and for someone who's a little bit younger maybe thinking that this is
what they want to do, and maybe the folks are listening right now,
more likely, how do they get the wheels going so that there's plenty of
advanced time and the lead time for their kids who are coming up in school.
You want to start thinking about it that sophomore year. And that's so
right now we actually are working our student services department. They are working with
our partner schools on the applications with those sophomore students just for every program a
Try County, so their sophomore year they want to be thinking about it.
Apply. We put in applications to Try County for the high school programs in
the spring, and then they will enter that Nursing Assistant program in August,
and so that program has been very popular. We usually have around eighty to
ninety students apply and we only have forty eight spots for that high school program.
So this will expand that that's being expanded as well, allowing a few
more students this opportunity. Now, we do plan to start the Bridge program
this August, and so that will basically be the students who are currently in
their junior year in our Nursing assistant program. So we're really talking to those
students to see if they're wanting to continue on this path and then stay with
us. My goodness, akes think of everything great campus that you have out
there, and you know, it seems like no matter who I meet from
Craig County Tech, you know they're from Craig County Tech. There's just you
know, this positive about you guys, and it speaks volumes about the school
because you guys get all kinds of national recognition for just being like the cool
school. If we could call it the Malcolm Baldridge Award, that's true.
I don't think mister Baldridge would appreciate us calling it the cool school, but
you've got a great team out there. We do. The culture is amazing
and it's everybody just strives to be excellent. And when you're taking care of
the students, we all have that at our main goal. It doesn't matter
if you are in the classroom with them or you're outside. That main goal
is how are we going to take care of our students? And it just
plays out with employee satisfaction. But our culture is amazing at Tri County Tech.
We call it the Tri County Way. As far as taking care of
each other and taking care of the students, well you're king of it.
Your teams are amazing because everything from hey let's think about this too, Hey
you're in let's get on this plan together, to hey we're in the plan,
to hey, you're graduating, where's my job? Where do I look
for a job? You even have people that go out there and blaze the
trail for the students so that nine times out of ten, once they got
that diploma, they got some place to go. You have our place at
rate, that's one of our key performance measures and it's usually very high.
So we have great community support as well. Yeah you do. I mean,
first of all, we've got our hospital here that you guys have been
working hand in hand with with more years than I can count. And then
with all of the other different industries that we have in our community and the
ones that are emerging, you know, with the aerospace and things like that.
School's just crazy good. Now, what's the what's the website? So
folks can get a little bit more information on this? Where can we go?
So you can just go to tray County Tech dot medio and you can
click in there and find links to apply for the program or find out any
information on any of the programs that we offer. Definitely get more information there.
Well, I want to thank you both for coming in here with such
great news. All right, let's let's turn out some healers. What do
you think? All right? Thank you folks, and you're listening to our community connection