New school program hopes to address needs of local fire departments
SALISBURY, Md – Parkside High School’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) program recently announced that they will be offering firefighter and EMT training for the 2024-2025 school year, through partnerships with organizations like Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute and the Salisbury Fire department. It’s a program that previously existed for many years, but a lack of interest from the community forced the county to stop offering it. The revival comes at a time when fire departments across the nation are in desperate need of help.
“When I got hired back in 2008, I tested against 60 or 70 other people. We now typically run a test and we have five or six. And of those five or six, one or two may be qualified,” said Captain Donald Messick of the Salisbury Fire Department. According to Captain Messick, recruiting and retaining firefighters has become a big challenge. He cited a statistic he saw recently that paints the issue as a national problem: In Pennsylvania, they went from 370,000 volunteer firefighters in the 1970s down to 36,000 in 2023, a precipitous decline in manpower.
With call volumes increasing, getting people to volunteer part-time has become more difficult: “It’s difficult to be a volunteer and put in the time necessary for the training, the number of calls, the other activities that they have to do within that firehouse, and then also have a family or go to school and play sports and things like that.”
Bryan Ashby, Supervisor of Career and Technical Programs for Wicomico County Public Schools, says that the need for training programs accessible to young people has now been recognized. Students are beginning once again to view a career as a firefighter or EMT as a real alternative to going straight to college after their high school graduation: “Students see that it’s a career that has the opportunity to grow and earn additional certifications. And that’s what today’s student is looking for.”
Starting next school year, juniors and seniors who have an affiliation with a volunteer fire company will have the opportunity to get hands on experience and real training that will prepare them for their career. “This is tough material to learn if you’re looking at four white walls all the time. You’ve got to have the apparatus in your hand. It has to be meaningful. The students have to apply [themselves],” Ashby said.
More students interested and trained as firefighters and EMTs means more hands on-deck when the community needs it most. The revitalization of the firefighter/EMT program hopes to help local departments address that need:”Our goal is to get people interested in the fire service before they get out into college and to get them trained so that when they walk out of high school, they can immediately either get a job or be part of a volunteer fire department and provide a service to the community,” Captain Messick said.
Ashby and Messick both emphasized the importance of the the rigorous EMT training in the program, saying it will help students compete for the best available positions. Captain Messick said that students will get plenty of experience, as their station receives a call requiring and EMT roughly every 30 minutes.
Students must be at least 16 years old and a junior in high school, with an existing affiliation with a volunteer fire company to register for the year-long course. The program will allow them to earn credits towards their high school graduation, and potentially college credits at Wor-Wic Community College.
