Career academy looks to expand its first responders academy
May 24—Creating a 21st century workforce for Whitfield County and the rest of Northwest Georgia. That's the goal of the Northwest Georgia College & Career Academy, according to its CEO David Moeller.
"When we are looking for a program for the college and career academy, it's not just about what we are going to do to benefit our students, but also how are we going to benefit our partners and our community, how we are going to create that talent pipeline," Moeller recently told the members of the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners.
Moeller pointed to the school's First Responders and Fire Academy, which allows students to complete their firefighter certification before they graduate from high school.
He said the idea for the academy began with a trip he made to a conference in Clayton County. He came back and brought the suggestion to Whitfield County Fire Department officials, who liked the idea of creating a pipeline for new firefighters.
Moeller said the program is a partnership among the career academy and Whitfield County Schools, the fire department, Georgia Northwestern Technical College and Scouting America's fire explorers program.
"The thing I always tell people is that all of the instruction comes from Whitfield County firefighters," he said. "It's not teachers like most classes."
"Georgia Northwestern got on board when we wanted to add an emergency medical technician program," he said. "They agreed to move their program down from Catoosa County. Whitfield County fire provides instruction for that as well."
He said historically there is a high attrition rate in firefighter training.
"We wanted to make sure that the people who come into this program stay in this program," he said. "We decided to partner with the Boy Scouts and create an explorer post at the college and career academy. The idea is to expose students in the ninth, 10th and 11th grade to some of the activities and trades they are going to have to be doing while they are a firefighter or an EMT. When they make that decision to go into the training program they know what they are getting into and hopefully will be staying in the program."
Moeller said the academy is looking to expand its partnership with Georgia Northwestern.
"We want to provide professional development for fire departments, help create actual degrees, and also expand our partnerships to other school systems and other fire departments," he said.
He said the academy also plans to add a certified jailer program to the first responders academy, noting the academy already has a certified instructor on staff and officials are waiting to complete agreements with the state.
