Tess Colwell/The Gazette
County Executive Rushern L. Baker (left), superintendent of Prince George's County Public Schools William J. Hite, Jr., and Fire Chief Marc S. Bashoor enter a building on fire during a practice simulation on Friday, January 20, 2012 at the Prince George's County Fire Academy in Cheltenham, MD. The county school system and the fire department announced the beginning of a partnership designed to encourage county students to consider firefighting as a career and boost the number of homegrown firefighters.
Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III and schools Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. may be used to putting out political fires, but Friday they dealt with the real thing as they entered a smoking building at the county’s Fire/EMS training facility in Cheltenham and doused the fire inside.
The two officials weren’t considering a new line of work, but rather donned firefighting gear to demonstrate the skills 24 students at Charles H. Flowers High School in Springdale will learn through a new two-year fire science academy.
The academy is a pilot partnership between the fire department and the county school system that begins this fall at the St. Joseph Community Fire/EMS Station near the high school.
“All our children need are two things… opportunity and hope,” said Flowers’ principal Helena Nobles Jones. “With this partnership, you have given them both.”
The students — 24 juniors the first year, and 48 juniors and seniors the second year — will take classes in fire behavior, hazardous materials and emergency response to terrorism. The classes can replace some required science, math and technology classes, said Nobles Jones, who anticipates hundreds of applications when she introduces the program to students in February or March.
“It gives the kids hope that they can be prepared at a young age for a career with an income that many of their parents don’t even have,” she said.
The fire science program will allow students to earn 17 college credit hours, 36 community service hours and the certifications necessary to become firefighters and emergency medical technicians, thereby allowing the county’s department to recruit more Prince George’s County natives as its first-responders, said fire Chief Marc Bashoor.
About 60 percent, or more than 450, of the department’s 750 first-responders live in the county, said Mark Brady, a spokesman for the department.
“The goal is really to make sure our students also become our candidates for our public safety positions,” Hite said.
If the pilot program is successful, the school system could replicate the idea through partnerships with the county’s police department and sheriff’s office, Hite said.
The fire department will cover $3,000 worth of gear — necessary for fighting training fires and navigating the department’s training maze — for each student in addition to providing classroom space, Bashoor said. The school system will pay $50,000 plus $200 per student for instructors and curriculum materials, Christy Lipscomb, a spokeswoman for the county executive, wrote in an email to The Gazette.
“They’re going to do fabulous things, and they’re going to make us all proud,” school board chairwoman Verjeana M. Jacobs said of the students who will participate in the academy.
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