Gentry High School students now enrolled in on-campus CNA course

Kaci Starkey ties on her mask while practicing donning personal protective equipment during the CNA class offered by Northwest Arkansas Community College on the Gentry High School Campus.
Kaci Starkey ties on her mask while practicing donning personal protective equipment during the CNA class offered by Northwest Arkansas Community College on the Gentry High School Campus.

GENTRY -- In an effort to offer local students more opportunities and better provide them with the skills needed to obtain jobs upon graduation, Gentry High School, in partnership with Northwest Arkansas Community College, is hosting its first CNA class this fall and has 11 students enrolled.

The class, which meets for one hour each school day, provides students with the instruction and training required by the Arkansas Office of Long Term Care before students can test and obtain their certification to work as a licensed nurse aide in Arkansas. The course includes lectures and textbook study as well as lab work and hands-on training, including a 24-hour clinical experience in a nursing facility at the end of the course.

The class is being conducted in a refurbished class room and lab room on the intermediate school campus and is being taught by Yolonda Moll, an LPN and part-time NWACC instructor currently working at the Ozarks Community Hospital clinic in Gravette. She has years of experience as a nurse and nurse's aide in long-term care facilities and was an instructor and program manager at Petra Allied Health in Springdale from 2006 to 2015.

Moll was excited to get back into the classroom and loves teaching CNAs. Her goal, she says, is to train her students to provide the best and most compassionate care to their patients while respecting the integrity and dignity of each patient. She described her Gentry students as attentive and eager to learn, something she is happy to see.

The class started at the same time the school district is in the process of applying to obtain permission from the Arkansas Board of Education to start a conversion charter school in connection with the high school. If the school district's application is approved, the charter school would begin in the fall of 2016 and more vocational training classes would be offered.

According to Judy Winslett, assistant superintendent of the Gentry School District, those classes would likely include training for entry-level medical professions and also training to prepare students for work in local industry, including a variety of mechanical and technical training courses offered in conjunction with area businesses and potential employers.

And even before the charter school can begin, a second medical class is being planned for the spring semester, a patient-care technician course -- a higher level of training for those who complete the CNA course and become state certified.

For some students, the training will provide them with the skills they need to have a career in the healthcare industry, whether working in a long-term care facility, a hospital or a doctor's office. For others, the class and related work experience may be only a first step toward a career as a nurse, physician's assistant or physician.

General News on 09/02/2015