Dozens of Shenandoah County Public Schools students are getting a jump start on possible careers in health sciences fields through a specialized program in partnership with Laurel Ridge.
The Shenandoah County Biomedical Sciences Academy is open to students attending Strasburg, Central and Stonewall Jackson high schools. Students in the academy spend half of their school day at Central High School taking biomedical, science and English classes, and the remainder of the day at their home schools.
Strasburg High School seniors Arleigh Mason and Kelsie Wilhide are two of the 60 students who were enrolled in the Biomedical Sciences Academy for the 2024-2025 academic year. Both girls signed up for internships, with Kelsie at Shenandoah Animal Hospital, and Arleigh at Drayer Physical Therapy.
Arleigh plans to attend Eastern Mennonite University and major in pre-physical therapy and minor in kinesiology. She hopes to be a pediatric physical therapist.
“I’ve wanted to be a physical therapist basically from the age of 9,” said Arleigh. “My grandma fell and broke her pelvis and had in-home physical therapy. I watched what they were doing and saw her being happy again.”
Kelsie will go to James Madison University this fall and major in pre-veterinary sciences.
When they graduated from high school in spring 2025, both girls had between 42 and 45 college credits, which will save them from having to take some classes at their universities. They each received two certificates from Laurel Ridge – one in uniform general studies, which satisfies the lower-division general education requirements at most universities, and one in pre-allied health.
Heidi Mason, a career coach at Central and Arleigh’s mother, said students must apply to the Biomedical Sciences Academy.
“The kids can come from all three high schools in Shenandoah County,” she said.
Each class they take at the academy, including English, is dual enrolled. Kelsie and Arleigh also took dual-enrolled classes at Strasburg and online through Laurel Ridge, such as art history, history, precalculus and statistics.
“We get lots of college credits, and we get to do fun things,” Arleigh said. “I liked anatomy and physiology. We did a lot of hands-on learning in that class.”
Kelsie added, “And, it gives you insight into the medical field and helps narrow down if somebody wants to go into it or not. It definitely helped me make up my mind.”
And beyond that, the academy is a huge cost savings.
“Instead of paying like $20,000 for these classes, I’m paying $400,” said Kelsie.
Another benefit can’t be measured in dollars and cents.
“I like the friendships we’ve made,” said Arleigh.
“It doesn’t matter what their home school is, when they arrive here, we leave all the rivalries at the door,” said instructor Melissa Marston.
Marston said the Biomedical Sciences Academy has led some alumni to medical careers, adding a former student now studying medicine came back to give a talk last year.
Mason said students apply for the academy at the end of their freshman year of high school. She said that graduating seniors are required to do a capstone project at the academy.
Laurel Ridge Community College was known as Lord Fairfax Community College until June 2022. For consistency purposes, the college will be referenced as Laurel Ridge going forward.