This is part of a feature on students with part-time jobs in their area of career interest.

Checking on residents at the end of her shift, senior Madison Labarge prepares to leave from Villa St. Francis, a nursing home in Olathe where she has worked as a paid certified nurse’s assistant (CNA) since the beginning of the school year.

Labarge received her CNA certification last year through the Eudora Ed-Tech program, an accomplishment that she says will be invaluable as she pursues a career in the medical field.

“For any nursing career you need your CNA, so working as a CNA now will put me at a step above everyone else,” Labarge said. “Normally, you get it as you’re going into nursing school.”

This year through the Eudora Ed-Tech program, Labarge and other students are required by Ed-Tech to work a minimum of 10 hours a week as a CNA. Labarge believes that working at Villa St. Francis gives her not only a good experience, but valuable relationships as well.

“Since I’ve been there a couple months, I’ve developed some good relationships with the staff and with the residents,” Labarge said.

As part of her training, she and her classmates were required to take weekly online quizzes and do clinicals three times a week, during which they work in the Eudora Medical Lodge nursing home.

As well as providing an opportunity for relationships, Labarge stressed the value of using  the program as a learning tool over simply being in a classroom.

“I think that this program is really good because you get to actually go and do clinicals and learn firsthand how being a CNA works,” Labarge said. “It’s better because you get to experience [nursing] and not just learn about it.”