Providence's next firefighters, medics? High school class creates pipeline to city jobs

PROVIDENCE − With a hood over her head that covered her eyes, Emily Bolanos felt her way through the inspection and use of a portable breathing apparatus, the kind firefighters use when heading into a burning building or to fight a toxic fire, opening and closing valves, and pulling the air tank out of its backpack holster.

Around her in the Central High School gym, Providence firefighters supervised, occasionally giving words of advice, instructions or encouragement, while eight other students out of the total of 12 worked to inspect and put on their fire gear.

Bolanos, 17, is one of 110 students working over the summer, and through the coming school year, in a collaborative program with the City of Providence and the Providence Public School District in which students learn year-round in career and technical education courses.

"The first-phase interview with the fire chief was pretty fun," Bolanos said.

Students are paid for their time

All of the students receive a small stipend for their classes over the summer, something that Mayor Brett Smiley, in a speech to the students, said was very important. The city kicked in $165,000 for stipends for 400 students, part of a total $850,000 expenditure on workforce development programs for students.

The city's other summer programs were oversubscribed within a week of opening, he said.

For Alexia Cruz, 17, the stipend received over the summer is important, because she needs to bring in some money to help her mom.

Will they be Providence's newest firefighters?

The firefighting career and technical education program is entering its third year. With any luck, the Providence Fire Department will welcome its first recruit who has gone through the program later this year or next year, Fire Chief Derek Silva said.

For Silva, the program is important for three reasons:

• It teaches students important skills that they can transfer to other fields, even if they don't want to become firefighters or medics.
• It introduces students to the possibility of becoming firefighters, especially important for the Providence Fire Department, which is trying to bring in new recruits to offset massive overtime costs and a steady stream of retirements .
• At the end, students will be nearly certified as emergency medical technicians, having all the training and schooling required and only needing to take the certification test.

If students want to become firefighters, it gives them a direct path to a job with very good pay and a pension. As Silva tells the students he visits, or anyone he meets when out and about, firefighters work about eight days a month because of their 24-hour shifts, compared with Providence police officers, who work eight-hour shifts.

Cruz said she does not think she will become a firefighter, but the class helps give her a leg up, and an EMT certification, for what she thinks she does want to do: nursing.

In all, over the course of the year, the students will spend 300 hours learning to be firefighters and 150 hours learning to be medics, through a partnership with the Community College of Rhode Island, for a total 450-hour program, the equivalent of 11 weeks of full-time work.

"I like it a lot," she said. "The chief seems like a good person, has the experience and is very lenient with us."

A singular vision for the program

The program's architect, Capt. Felix Ramos Jr., was getting ready to retire and move on to his next career as a teacher after completing his degree while working as a firefighter. Instead, Silva tapped him to lead the program, combining Ramos' two favorite things: teaching and firefighting.

While Silva said he is a little worried about the program being built around just one person, Ramos is helping to train his eventual replacements: the other instructors in the class.

Learning starts in the classroom

Cruz started in the law enforcement track when her teacher, Zachary Sylvia, promoted the firefighting course in class. But it was her friends who had already gone through the program that really convinced her to go for the interview and accept a spot in the program.

So far, Cruz said her favorite part of the program was learning how to put on the air tank, referred to as a self-contained breathing apparatus. Still, she said she looks forward to helping out around the fire station, assisting firefighters with with their duties.

Lizbeth Chingo, 16, said the class is really fun, even if she still wants to become a police officer or detective.

While the students are just a few weeks into their year-long course, Sylvia said many of them will have changed their minds by June 2025, when they graduate from the program and for many, graduate high school, finding that firefighting is their calling. This cohort's program started in July and will end next June.

For Bolanos, that change has already happened. A Sea Cadet, she has known for some time she wants to join the military. At first she was interested in law enforcement, but now she wants to be a firefighter in the military.

"We're learning how to push our limits," she said.

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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on Twitter @WheelerReporter .

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence's next firefighters, medics? High school class creates pipeline to city jobs