The Austin Community College Hays campus in Kyle will be the future home of a first-responder training center, which will be the first of its kind in the district.[/caption]

Austin Community College is set to construct in Kyle a first-responders training center, which will be the first of its kind among the college district’s 11 campuses.

The ACC Hays campus and Hays CISD are responding to the ever-present health care workforce shortage with educational programs designed to train first responders, such as emergency medical service paramedics.

“The college is the region’s primary trainer of first responders, and the new training center will expand capacity for high-demand programs such as EMS professions,” said Mike Midgley, ACC’s vice president of instruction. “While based at [the] Hays campus, the center will serve regional needs.”

The 88,300-square-foot ACC Hays campus opened in January 2014 and reached its capacity of 2,000 students within its first year.

By reaching maximum enrollment, the Hays County community demonstrated a strong demand for educational services, Midgley said. That is among the reasons the Hays campus was chosen as the site of the first-responder training center, he said.

“The [Hays campus] continues to exceed expectations as north Hays County continues rapidly growing,” Midgley said.

The center was part of a bond program ACC district voters approved in November. The $386 million set of capital improvements affects several ACC facilities.

In addition to the first-responder training facilities the ACC Hays campus will receive a new instructional building and additional parking.

New entry-level health programs could be among the new educational offerings in Phase II of the campus’s growth, Midgley said. Continuing education health programs, such as certified nurse aide, medical assistant or medication aide certifications, are among the possible new courses, he said.

Midgley said the college seeks regular input from the community on how to connect its mission with the communities it serves. Each ACC campus enlists the help of a committee of community leaders as well as ACC students, faculty and staff to help guide the college’s planning process for the next 20 years, he said.

Diana Blank-Torres, director of the Kyle’s economic development office, was involved in the planning process before ACC constructed the Hays campus. She said the will of the committee was to gear ACC’s educational offerings toward health science-related fields as much as possible.

If that vision is executed, she said it will help the city of Kyle fulfill its goal of becoming a full-service community where people live, work and play.

“We’re not content being a bedroom community,” Blank-Torres said.

Hays CISD students are earning emergency medical technician, or EMT, certifications right after graduating.

In the 2014-15 school year a total of 998 students at the district’s two high schools received training in an area of medicine through an elective class, said Suzi Mitchell, Hays CISD’s director of career and technical education. That is equivalent to one-fifth of the entire high school population at Hays CISD, she said.

“As soon as they graduate they can immediately take the EMT license [test] and go straight to work,” Mitchell said. “A lot of the kids go to work as EMTs to pay their way through college and [earn a degree] in the medical field.”

Among the other opportunities in the medical field for Hays CISD students are biomedical courses in which students study forensic science. Students can also do clinical rotations with various health care providers in Kyle, including Seton Medical Center Hays.

“The demand is there, and the jobs are out there,” Mitchell said.