Community Partnership Offers New Career Pathway

Look out, Henderson County High! Yet another exciting, ambitious pathway is coming to the Career and Technical Education unit. In addition to the many opportunities and programs already offered at the school, the firefighting pathway will be lighting up the halls this upcoming 2025-2026 school year. 

Aspiring firefighters can expect to learn several skills throughout this program. They will learn about safety, practice physical skills that will be extremely useful to them in their future line of work, study for certifications that they can use for career advancement, and learn life skills that will help them in all aspects of their lives. 

This program has been a long time in the works, according to Henderson Fire Division Chief Casey Howard, who will be spearheading the program next school year. He stated that there has been lots of interest from students in this type of pathway, and that the school and the community had strong goals to make it happen. A good amount of interest was sparked when the topic came up at a freshman orientation meeting at Henderson County High by parents, students, local agencies, and the firefighters themselves. There are programs that exist already throughout the state of Kentucky for this pathway, so adapting the curriculum has been easier than building it from scratch, although it does seem that Chief Howard has his work cut out for him. “It wasn’t an easy process,” he admitted, “but it helped a lot that the high school already has a well-established Career and Technical Education unit that we could add onto.” 

“It’s a four year program,” said Howard. “This means that someone who starts as a freshman will have four courses that they go through to complete the pathway. By the end, that will end up translating to the fire services firefighter one and two certifications. They will get two of the main certifications that most career departments require for their employees. These certifications are liable to be used across the entire state of Kentucky. Anyone who receives them can basically go straight into a job with most fire departments, including those in Henderson. This program will give the skills and background required to be a firefighter anywhere in the United States, but we hope that this will lead to a growth of firefighters in the Henderson area that will work to help the community.”

Chief Howard has graciously agreed to teach the program starting next year in addition to continuing his firefighting duties. He expressed hopes that the program will grow into something that will require a full-time teacher, which it likely will based on the number of students who expressed interest. For the upcoming school year, there will be two different classes that the students will be split into that will learn the same material. Forty-three students have signed up for the program. “I’m willing to put in the effort as long as it makes the program a success,” Howard disclosed. 

Career and Technical Education unit principal J.T. Payne also commented on his hopes for the program. “We are extremely excited about the partnership between CTE and the Henderson Fire Department as we pilot the new fire science program. It will be invaluable to have an active duty firefighter teaching a course to students, which will provide a direct pipeline to our local fire department. We have already had an impressive amount of interest in the program, and expect that to grow over the next few years. We have a 3-year-plan to fully implement the program as a permanent part of our CTE course offerings, which includes offering a new level/course each year. This expands our focus on service-minded careers, and we will now have pathways for students who wish to go into law enforcement, the military, fire science, education/teaching, and the medical field. It is a great example of how education can partner to help solve community issues, and I’m so proud that we get to be part of it at HCHS.”

Good luck to Chief Howard and all involved with this program. Henderson is rooting for your success and in four years, we hope to see several fresh faces in those familiar hard hats ready to serve our community.