Fourteen students are signed up for the spring semester emergency medical technician course at Park City High School, a class that lets them graduate with a full EMT certification. But they might not have the career leg up they planned for. As of Wednesday, the Park City School District hasn’t found an instructor since longtime teacher Mary Purzycki retired. And it’s not for lack of trying. Purzycki, who received the Park City Education Foundation Excellent Educator Award earlier this year, created a plan to keep the class going after she’d left. The idea was to build off a partnership with Mountainland Technical College, which opened its new Heber Valley campus in August.  The high school already worked with the college on a certified nursing assistant class taught by MTECH instructors, so the hope was to establish the EMT class the same way. But the Heber campus had its own challenges hiring an instructor, and the high school students would’ve needed to commute to Heber City. That might have been possible, if difficult, except the college was set up for daily classes. At Park City High School, EMT classes, already a three-hour double period, are scheduled every other day. It just wasn’t going to work.  Park City Fire District decided to step in, according to Capt. Michael Dean, who leads EMS training. Park City Fire District Capt. Michael Dean oversees the department’s training. He’s spent 22 years in emergency medical services. Credit: Park Record file photo by Jonathan Herrera Park City Fire has been a longtime partner of the high school’s EMT class, said Purzycki. Crews attended lectures and hands-on skills days, and students joined for ride-alongs in ambulances. However, signing up to lead the full class, rather than occasional pop-in lectures, would be a major shift from the Fire District’s former role at the school, Dean said. It’s a huge time commitment and would redirect a few firefighters away from their primary duties, but the department was willing to do it to save the class. A few years ago, Utah increased the qualifications needed to teach an EMT course. Now, instructors need an EMT license and experience working as an EMT and teaching under an instructor before they can apply to be one themselves. Then, a course coordinator with instructor experience is needed to host the class. Dean and his staff have all those training requirements. What they don’t have is a certified teaching certificate to teach in a high school and the grading and parent-teacher dynamics that come with those roles, he said. “That puts my EMT instructor in a very weird situation. … They’re firefighters and EMTs. They’re not high school educators. It’s also not legal. You have to have a teaching certificate to teach students. We don’t have that,” he said. “We would not be equipped if a student had some kind of crisis. We wouldn’t know the system.” Dean said the goal was for the high school to find someone with the appropriate teaching credentials to join as the EMT instructor handling report cards and any parent or student needs. Then Dean, through Park City Fire, would act as the course coordinator and maintain the responsibility and liability through the Utah Bureau of Emergency Medical Services.  The Park City School District posted the job listing for an EMT instructor, who would start at $41.71 an hour in January, a few months ago. But it still hasn’t filled the role, said Colton Elliott, the school district’s public information officer. The district will pull the listing on Sunday, he said. Dean said he’s still optimistic the district might find a certified high school educator before it’s too late. “We want the program. We are willing to even put our employees there and pay for our services without reimbursement for any of it to have them be successful,” he said.  The EMT class is through the high school’s Career and Technical Education pathway. It’s not a mandatory credit, but it falls under the state’s three-tier system — explorer, concentrator and completer. To be a completer, students in the health science pathway need a certain number of credits. The EMT class, classified in the highest tier as a completer course, counts toward one of those credits, said Elliott.  Purzycki said the course is a great resource for Park City students.  For example, Park City Fire, like many fire departments in the state, is cross-trained, meaning staffers are both certified as firefighters and EMTs. The district has a rigorous in-house recruitment course, and anyone considered for a position must have either an EMT certification or a firefighting certification. Meaning these Park City High students already have a pathway toward that career. Mary Purzycki, who taught the EMT class at Park City High School, was named Park City High School’s Excellent Educator for the 2025-26 school year. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record “For kids who don’t want to go to college … working for any of the fire agencies is nice,” Purzycki said. “The pay is OK, the pension is great. The schedule, if you have a family, is flexible.” The course isn’t set up as a feeder program to Park City Fire, though, and that’s not the reason the department wants to save the class, Dean said. It’s just about being “a good neighbor.” EMT certifications also open opportunities to try for ski patrol positions at Park City resorts, Purzycki said. It’s also a pathway towards other careers in healthcare. “There’s such a healthcare shortage, the state will allow the kids as EMTs to work in the hospitals,” she said, “and then whatever the hospital trains them as, they get to work in the hospital.” That includes hospitals under the University of Utah, which has another perk: after three months, university employees qualify for lower tuition.  It also means students can be hired right out of high school and start earning patient contact hours which are required to apply to healthcare programs like nursing school, Purzycki said. “A lot of those kids go off and do something in healthcare, whether it’s state emergency services or going to nursing or (physical therapy) or going to med school or become a (physician assistant),” she said.  Purzycki said per state requirements, students in the EMT class must be or turn 18 during the class. So, it’s often seniors enrolled.  “These kids are committed. They could have had a parent release or a work release, which is a big thing senior year. A lot of kids work their schedule to have that,” she said. “So the 14 kids who are there are kids who want to be there.” Dean said if the school still doesn’t have someone by Sunday’s deadline, he’s still hopeful that the right pieces will come together for those students. “I’m optimistic. I still don’t think the door is shut, at least for this year. There’s a lot of pressure from the top to be successful here,” he said. “You have to just find a passionate person that this is what they believe in, which probably is way harder to find in an ad. It’d be more like word of mouth.”  The EMT instructor position for Park City School District is currently posted at pcsd.munisselfservice.com/ess/EmploymentOpportunities/JobDetail.aspx?req=20271sreq=41form=02desc=EMT%20INSTRUCTOR. The post Park City High School EMT course might be cut. The Park City Fire District hopes to save it. appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less