Health Science and CNA (a course to become a Certified Nurse’s Assistant), two courses that have been separate in the past, will combine and be taken in two semesters, beginning next year.

“CNA was a full year, and we did the book and went to the nursing home, and Health Science did a lot of in-class stuff and then some rotations through the hospital and in other various areas spread out a lot,” CNA teacher Kristen Hornyak said. “Both classes can be easily condensed into one semester. You can get your CNA in eight weeks at Collin [Community College] so we figured it would move quicker if we did it that way.”

Making both classes fit into the same year will allow students enrolled in the course to have more hands-on experience by having their CNA certification and eliminates the choice students have had to make in the past about taking one course versus the other.

“CNA is [currently] more of a shadowing course, so we’re hoping if they already have their CNA certifications, they might actually be able to do stuff at some of those locations,” Hornyak said. “And there’s benefit for a lot of kids that couldn’t decide which class they wanted to be in. There are some CNA students who wish they could go to the hospital, and now they’ll be able to. Kids don’t have to make that choice anymore, and they’ll get to do both.”

The program continues to grow so this change makes it easier for more kids to participate in the program.

“We’re going to go from having 41 kids this year to 110 next year,” Hornyak said. “So for example, if there are 100 kids in the program, 50 will do CNA and 50 will do Health Science one semester and the next one they’ll flip.”

The switch to a regularly blocked schedule next year shouldn’t affect the times students will go to the hospitals. 

“It shouldn’t be different because this class is double-blocked anyway,” Hornyak said. “Right now we don’t know if the morning classes will be considered 0 periods. As for timing, it will actually help us.”

CNA and Health Science provides experiences in hospitals and in nursing homes that require comfort with the skills and information they’ve learned in class.

“If students have any interest in anything medical whether it may be nursing, doctor, physical therapy, dentist, whatever it is, you’re going to be taking care of somebody whether it’s pediatric or elderly or whoever,” Hornyak said. “So not only does CNA give kids hands-on experience, but they’re actually touching and helping patients so it changes their sense of compassion. Doing Health Science there are kids that have thought the only thing they ever want to do is pediatrics and then they go and do a rotation in orthopedics and they’re like ‘wow, I really like orthopedics’ so it kind of gives them a broader idea of what’s out there.”