Intermountain Health gives $5 million to Weber School District for health-care career programs
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Summary
Intermountain Community Care Foundation awarded Weber School District a $5,000,000 grant to expand career-and-technical education in health fields, district leaders said at a board meeting.
Weber School District announced a $5,000,000 grant from the Intermountain Community Care Foundation during its board meeting, district officials said. The district said it will use the money to expand health-care career-and-technical education (CTE) programs across its schools.
Superintendent Butters introduced Barry Buse of Intermountain Health and thanked the foundation for “the remarkable $5,000,000 grant,” saying the gift will “have a profound and lasting impact on our students.” Director Rod Belknap outlined program areas the district expects to support with the funding, including medical assisting, certified nursing assistant (CNA) apprenticeships and internships, emergency medical technician (EMT) training, dental assisting, phlebotomy, biotechnology, physical therapy and pharmacy technician pathways.
Belknap told the board the grant will support partnerships with local postsecondary providers to offer certifications and credit-bearing pathways. “We will partner with Weber State and Ogden-Weber Technical College as we look for more opportunities for our students to be able to enter into the high demand, high wage opportunities that are available in Northern Utah in health care,” he said.
Barry Buse, representing Intermountain Health, said the region needs more trained health-care workers and that the foundation was “proud to partner in this way so that people in our communities can receive the care that they need.” The district said it expects the grant to fund programming first and noted the capital component remains to be determined; Belknap said they would later “look[ ] at what the capital part of this will look like.”
Board members and district leaders posed for photographs with Buse and expressed gratitude. No formal vote was recorded in the transcript for accepting the gift; district leaders said they will follow up with details about program rollout and any capital plans.
The grant targets expansion of CTE offerings in health sciences across Weber School District and is intended to provide students with work-based learning, internships, certifications and articulated credit opportunities with local higher-education partners.
