FireLink

Here in IN there are two high schools that I know of offering fire classes. One is in Greenwood, IN @ centeral Nine Career Center, the other is Ben Davis High School. There might be a third on the north side of Indy @ the J. Everret Light Career Center, but I personally am not sure of that one. 

here in bucks county,pa., the middle bucks institute of technology teaches emergency services as well as fire classes.  now, i don't know how deep they go into the fire class as it was added to the curriculum after i graduated. but i do know kids ( high school) can obtain emt certs.  the school also is open to adults, but 98% of the students enrolled are high school students.  i personally feel it is a good idea.  nationally, volunteers are down... way down from the 80's and 90's.  if the kids finish the class, it may give them the opportunity to persue a career in the volloy service.  if not, they have the option to go to a paid dept. 

on the other had,  kids sometimes have alterior motives for learning these things (most do not).  i think it may give them too much info to get into trouble.  but all in all, i think it's a good idea.

I do not think teaching firefighting techniques have a place in our schools.  There are more pressing issues than that.  Trust me, my wife is a teacher here in Florida and it is a struggle to teach them the simple rules of language much less some firefighting topics.  However, the Explorer program is something I wholeheartedly support.  I started as an explorer in high school and was able to do ride time with Metro-Dade Fire rescue each month.  This solidified my desire to go into the field.  Now, the Explorers get bonus points when they are old enough to apply for firefighter full time. 

I think that teaching Firefighting classes in High School would be great, at least in my community. I am on a combination paid/volunteer dept. We have an Explorer post, but we are limited on the amount of time and training we are able to give them. If we could get Explorers that are taking these classes in High School, graduating with FF2 and EMT-Basic, they could easily volunteer for the department while looking to get hired on either our dept or another of their choosing. I would love to have a strong, educated group of Explorers turn into volunteers, and I'm sure my community would too.

I think it's a wonderful idea. I wish I'd had the opportunity to do something like that.

Good idea, hopefully they will mature enough by the time they are ready to get certified

Here in the Los Angeles area, the LA School District has partnered with a local college to offer students a fire science program.  From what I know of the program, there have been a lot of success stories with regards to it helping to keep kids out of gangs and off of drugs.  As well as giving them a good knowledge of firefighting techniques, it teaches the kids discipline.  From what I've heard, many of the graduates even come back to volunteer to help with the new students, and many of them go on to further their education and apply for jobs in the fire service.  I think that it is awesome that it's making a difference in the lives of these kids, as it is giving them the opportunity to be involved in something that they might not have otherwise been exposed to or had an interest in.

I think that it would be a great idea. I wish we had something like that around here. I think however that it should be limited to juniors or seniors in high school and be an elective kind of like sports. If you keep the grades to stay then fine but if they drop below a certain point then the would be out of the program. That way the program would not get in the way of a students grades. I would like to find more information on this explorers program some of you were talking about and or the junior firefighter program. We are trying to get more information on this for our firehouse.

it makes me madd. I grew up in Wichita Kansas were that artical is about. they did not offer that when I went to scool 14 years ago. if they did I probly would of got strat AAAAAAAAAAA,s in school. lol

in all honesty. I dont want to seem like an a** but they didnt offer it to me in high school...I am having to pay for all my training so IN MY OPINION high school students should NOT be permitted to be able to take it.

They dont have to take a firefighting class to become a better person or stay out of trouble. There are plenty of other extra cirriculars they can do to do that. I dont know how a high school would be able to pay for the insurance for the program in case a student got hurt or even killed for that matter. Then how is all this gonna reflect back onto everything?

The department I got my feet wet in back in the mid 80's had "Fire Science" as an elective class.  However, it was definitely a different time back then.  I joined when I was 16 and the "Junior" membership was pretty much all our community had during the daytime hours and our fire chief was a teniored teacher at the high school.  We actually parked our cars at the fire station in the morning and drove the units to school and were the primary response during school hours.  There were no OSHA restrictions back then, we did the job because we wanted to - from full extrication to making entry into structure fires.  The department brotherhood became a very important part of my life and kept me focused and out of trouble.  It was considedered by the school as an extracurricular activity, so we had to maintain the minimum grade levels, just like the sports teams.  Times have changed, but I agree - I think it would be a great addition to any vocational training programs at the high school level. 

Hey JW - I don't mean to seem like an a** - but aren't you being a bit selfish?  Like it or not, our profession is looked to for mentorship of our young kids out there - why wouldn't you want to see programs in place to help them succeed instead of getting into things they shouldn't?  Just my .02 cents.

In the area I live in, we have 4 high schools from 4 different cities that combine their voccational classes with the rest of the schools in the district. And between the 4 schools we had Masonry/Building Trades (which I took), Cosmetology, Carpentry, Chef Preperation and Management, Sports Med, a combined class that taught the basics of police/fire classes but not enough to get you a job, Auto Tech and a few others I cant remember off the top of my head.

But in my opinion...to have strictly a Firefighting class at the High School level would be risky business. I dont believe that high school kids are mature enough for such a dangerous course. Alot of kids would line up wanting to do it just so they could play with fire. Again this is my opinion but I think it would be a pretty accurate one that most kids wouldnt take the class to be a firefighter but just so they could take it as a fun class to get away from the other classes.

We have had a student FF program for around 10 years. Students go thru the FF academy  then come to the station for 1 or 2 class periods a day. They also are allowed to get out of class to respond to calls. This has been the saving grace for our small all volunteer department with very low numbers of daytime responders.  

I think something that would change my mind on the subject is if maybe the local fire department or school had some kind of interview process that would weed out the immature kids that wouldnt take the class seriously.

How they would do that I have no idea. But as I stated previously, I wouldnt approve of it because 80% of high school students are way too immature for such a dangerous course and most kids would only take it just so they could go and play with fire.

Again this is just my opinion...and seeing as how I just came out of high school last year, I kinda know how most kids are today.

I believe it should be offered in addition to other courses that students are allowed to take such as ag classes and home-ec