Calhoun, Morgan County Schools outline Rural Development Park career pathways for juniors and seniors

Kevin Harbon, dean of health sciences at Calhoun Community College, told the Morgan County Board of Education that Calhoun and Morgan County Schools are rolling out a Rural Development Park (RDP) offering dual-enrollment pathways in high-demand health occupations for high school juniors and seniors.

The RDP will create 10 distinct health-care pathways that Harbon said “lead to licensure or certification” and use portable, stackable credentials so students who move out of state keep credentials that employers recognize. Harbon described programs that include central sterile processing, dental assisting, licensed practical nursing (LPN), emergency medical technician (EMT) through advanced EMT, certified nursing assistant (CNA) and a new state nursing support technician credential, medical lab assistant, and others. He said some programs require external programmatic accreditation before they can enroll students.

Why it matters: the college-school partnership is designed to shorten the pipeline from high school to local employment and to reduce students’ use of federal Pell funds. Harbon said the RDP’s aim is to allow students to reach the first semester of a postsecondary credential “without ever touching Pell,” preserving roughly 120 Pell hours for students who later transfer to four-year institutions.

Program logistics and enrollment: Harbon said the RDP application closed Sunday at midnight and the college will begin notifying applicants immediately. He said there were 27 application responses in the initial round and that applicants are about evenly split between juniors and seniors. The admission committee was scheduled for the following week; the fall RDP schedule was to be finalized on Feb. 25, and construction work for the RDP was planned to be considered at the next month’s board session.

Capacity and sequencing: Harbon told board members the program will run a morning block initially and that Calhoun can open afternoon sessions “if we have to” to add capacity; he said the long-term plan includes running both morning and afternoon blocks and possibly later phases that expand the site and add programs. For programs that require accreditation—Harbon cited dental assisting and LPN—students will not see those options in first fall enrollment numbers until outside accrediting bodies complete reviews.

Funding, employer commitment and credentials: Harbon said employers who hire program graduates have committed to helping fund early training, including sponsoring students’ first college semester. He explained that Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) funding “no longer pays for the first semester of any program,” which makes employer scholarships a key tool for avoiding early Pell use. Harbon described a strategy in which an employer scholarship plus incumbent-worker training streams could bridge the initial semester, then allow other funding sources to support later training.

Questions and concerns raised: Board members asked whether seniors who start multi-year pathways could complete certification before graduation; Harbon responded that some seniors would begin pathways they could not fully complete in their senior year but would have guaranteed seats in the next college cohort. Board members also asked about seat availability; Harbon repeated that afternoon sessions could be added to increase capacity.

Background and partners: Harbon said the RDP model is different from Alabama’s new High School for Health Sciences and that Calhoun’s approach is intended to be comprehensive among two-year colleges. He referenced working with the principal at the RDP site (Hudson) and named external partners and regulators mentioned during the presentation: the Alabama Board of Nursing (nursing support technician and LPN tracks), Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) for dental assistant accreditation, and the Alabama Fire College regarding firefighter training if a public-safety track is created.

Next steps: Harbon said the project will return to the board as construction and scheduling details are finalized and as the college can report early outcomes such as certification and six- to 12-month employment rates. He said Calhoun will share more outcome data at a later meeting once cohorts begin completing credentials.