All those who started the Jefferson College paramedic program during the 2022-2023 school year completed it and graduated in May, possibly a first-time achievement, college officials said.
Joe Haack, the college’s Emergency Medical Services program director, said 100 percent of the spring 2023 class graduated from the one-year program.
“We started with 23 and ended with 23 graduating,” Haack said. “As far back as I can see in the records, it’s never happened since the records started. I can see back to 2014. The program goes back to the early 1990s.”
Haack said records for the program before 2014 are sketchy.
Regardless, having a class finish with the same number of people who started is something special, he said.
“We average about 25 percent leaving before graduating,” Haack said. “(The 2023 class) was just a great bunch.”
Haack praised the students and the paramedic program instructors for the perfect graduation rate.
“The class had good internal leadership,” he said. “And our instructional team was just incredible.”
A member of the class, Anastasia Solorzano said the students helped each other through the program.
“I think everyone did so well because we all clicked really well,” said Solorzano, 21, of Imperial. “We all became family and friends.
“We would put study sessions together. And, our instructors were always available.
“We had amazing paramedic adjuncts who all work in the field who would give us their time to run us through scenarios and answer questions we had.”
Solorzano is now working as a paramedic for the Rock Township Ambulance District.
Terry Kite, the college’s associate dean of business, social services and public service, credited county ambulance districts for contributing to the program’s success.
“The community ambulance districts chipped in and really helped support the program,” Kite said.
“They worked with our Jefferson College students to get internships and to get their practicals done.
“They have been really available for our advisory board.”
The college’s paramedic program is important to the area’s ambulance districts, said Joachim-Plattin Ambulance District Deputy Chief Ken Strathmann, who previously served as an instructor in the program.
“We are part of the effort to maintain the EMS program at Jefferson College because it is our main employment draw,” he said.