Northshore Technical Community College has become the first college in the state of Louisiana to establish a nontraditional, dual-enrolled practical nursing cohort for high school students starting in the fall of 2022. The program will help these students become job-ready within one year of their high school graduation.
Northshore is looking to recruit up to 40 students from local high schools that will meet full admission criteria of the new program. Capturing high school students during their junior year can help them be successful early in the practical nursing program.
“We are excited for our students to have another career pathway for high-wage, high-demand jobs. The medical field is a vital part of our St. Tammany community, and through this partnership with NTCC, we will be able to offer students the opportunity to have careers in the same parish where they attend school,” said Frank Jabbia, St. Tammany Parish public school system superintendent.
This cohort will take classes from the first semester curriculum of the practical nursing program in their junior and senior years of high school. Once successfully completed, the students will be given advanced standing into the second semester of the program that will enable them to continue the second semester of the practical nursing program and complete it 12 months after they finish high school with a high-demand job.
NTCC has been a long-standing community college with five campuses in Lacombe, Bogalusa, Livingston, Hammond and Livingston that offer a practical nursing program at each campus.
Christi Marceaux, associate provost of health sciences and nursing at Northshore Technical Community College, said that with the current shortage of health care workers and nurses, this is an innovative way to help students achieve their goals as timely as possible.
“We believe programs such as this one will allow us to deliver the highest quality education in the shortest time possible to benefit students and our community at large,” she said.
Students admitted to the program will follow the approved NTCC-LAC practical nursing program curriculum that is designed to ensure program graduates possess the knowledge, skill, ability and clinical competence to practice safely and effectively as an entry-level practical nurse in Louisiana. “The ability to provide high school students with an advanced start in preparing to become a practical nurse will sustain an essential and noble profession and create pathways to prosperity for our graduates,” said Dr. William S. Wainwright, Northshore’s chancellor.
