Career Academy, school-within-a-school
	Palmdale High School is a Title I school serving a majority of low-income and at-risk students. Now in its 14th year, the high school’s Health Careers Academy is a comprehensive four-year program serving about 500 students that combines academic courses with clinical instruction. More specifically, the program integrates medicine and technology into common core subjects such as English, science, and social studies while involving students in service learning projects and internships in the community. The Health Careers Academy has two primary goals: 1) to provide all Academy students with an academically rigorous and experientially relevant educational program so they are exposed to and prepared for careers in the health care industry; and 2) to prepare students to succeed in institutions of higher learning.
	The Academy offers a comprehensive four-year curriculum, combining core academics with increasingly challenging technical instruction in many aspects of the health care professions. Key academic classes that meet “a to g” requirements are integrated with relevant applications in the health industry and health professions. The Academy encourages students to take several courses during the summer so that they have more time to take the Health Occupations courses in their junior and senior years. The goal of the first two years of the Academy is to expose students to general occupations in the health care industry. The final two years are dedicated to providing students with as much “hands-on” experience as possible through extensive job shadowing and internships. The Health Occupations courses provide students with technical medical expertise through classroom instruction and allow students to apply what they have learned through a series of rotations at various health care institutions. The Academy has built extensive partnerships with the health industry. Partnership sites include the following: For Rotation Sites—Antelope Valley Convalescent Hospital, Antelope Valley Hospital, Antelope Nursing Care Center, Kaiser Permanente, and Lancaster Community Hospital. For Externship Sites—In addition to those listed above, the Academy has also partnered with Desert Dental Palmdale and Lancaster, Vora (The Women’s Clinic), and Lancaster Sports Medicine, to name a few.