WESTMINSTER : Getting a Jump on Learning a Trade
Seventeen-year-old Becky Villegas has an unusual career ambition--she wants to be a mortician.
With help from the Health Science Careers Academy at Westminster High School, Becky is getting the chance to learn about her future trade firsthand.
Becky meets regularly with Liz Stevenson, an embalmer at Westminster Memorial Park, where the teen-ager has watched Stevenson and other morticians in action. She also has met with pathologists at Humana Hospital-Huntington Beach.
“They’re all nice people--nobody was odd or strange; they’re not ugly with bulging eyes,” Becky said. “Everybody was nice, and they made me feel comfortable.”
Becky, a junior at the high school, said she has been interested in becoming a mortician for years. “The human body fascinates me, and I like biology.”
The Health Science Careers Academy, in its second year at the high school, is designed for students who are interested in careers in the health care industry and who have had grade or attendance problems in their freshmen year. Through hospital tours, lectures and mentors, as well as special classes, program officials aim to give students a head start on their careers.
“It’s very successful. I’m very pleased with the program,” said coordinator Karen Swemba, a life sciences teacher at the school since 1969. “It gives kids exposure to things they couldn’t normally get as far as health-related fields. Becky couldn’t have walked up to Westminster Memorial Park and said she wanted to do this. Coming through the school, they are willing to get involved.”
The health academy includes about 70 sophomores and juniors. Each year about 50 more sophomores are recruited, Swemba said. The program is funded by the California Department of Education’s Partnerships Academy program, which this year gave the center a $90,000 grant.
The money is used to reduce the academy’s class size--to a ratio of 25 students per teacher versus 35 students per teacher in regular school courses. Grant money also is used to transport students on field trips, as well as for additional supplies, books and computer programs.
The program also is supported by the business community--FHP Hospital, Humana Hospital-Huntington Beach and Bristol Park Medical Group provide mentors, guest speakers and facilities for the tours. FHP donated $50,000 worth of computers for a computer lab for the students.
Mentors include cardiologists, chiropractors and health care administrators. For many of the students, these mentors turn out to be more than just teachers.
“She’s like a friend,” Becky says of her mentor. “We go shopping or to a coffee shop, and we talk about everything--the mortuary, how many embalmings she’s done that day.”
Other students interested in the health care field choose more mainstream career goals.
Josh Ortega, a sophomore, hopes to become a pediatrician. Since he became involved in the program, he said his grade average has risen from a D to a B.
“There are fewer people in the classes and the teachers talk to you more and help you with work,” said Josh, 16. “People are always checking on us.”
Swemba said they require students whose grades drop to attend a tutorial.
“It has really saved some kids who might have gone by the wayside and flunked,” Swemba said. “We show them they can do anything if they put their minds to it.”
