AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom. Read our AI Policy. A shy sophomore girl at Valley High School wandered past dozens of booths during the annual health and fitness expo until one display sucked her in. Student volunteers were explaining how diet and exercise could prevent strokes. Her mother had just suffered a crippling one. Their family had no insurance. Her father was working three jobs to pay medical bills and support them. But at that booth, Chi Qian Chen said, people her own age spoke with authority on subjects that could have changed her mother’s fate. That chance encounter was about eight years ago. It spurred her to join those students in the school’s Health Tech Academy, a program that has been transforming lives at Valley High since 1993. Chen tracked down Rodney Black, the teacher who coordinates the program, and asked how she could get into it. When the program started, the Health Tech Academy offered classes on health but little practical training. That changed in 2007 when Black reoriented the curriculum toward public health. By 2013, after working with a coalition of state health care leaders , Black launched California’s first high school-based community health worker certification program. Today, students completing the Health Tech program leave South Sacramento’s Valley High with more than 300 hours of training, paid internships and state-recognized credentials. They practice case management and health navigation. They operate their own clinic on campus. They staff community health fairs. They also are already serving Medi-Cal patients and billing for their services. Using an electronic platform known as Pear Suite, student interns conduct patient outreach, secure consent for services, and document calls, follow-ups, and referrals. They connect families to food pantries, help arrange transportation for medical care and even guide them to housing programs. Valley High senior Angelina Tran recalled how she helped one health plan member sign up for a source of income through the CalWorks program. .After that, she said, she was able to find a housing navigation program by researching suggestions from 211 Sacramento. Then she connected the member directly to a United Way representative who could help. Many Health Tech alumni have become doctors, nurses, veterinarians and more, and Black has photos of them plastered all around his classroom. Chen, a Dell Scholar, graduated in 2024 with a biochemistry degree from UC Davis and is now applying to medical schools. Four siblings from one working-class family have been accepted to medical schools around the nation. Another Health Tech alum, Arturo Garzon, graduated UC Davis Medical School and became a family medicine resident with Kaiser Permanente in the South Sacramento neighborhood where he grew up before cancer claimed his life last year, Black said. Kaiser now awards a $5,000 scholarship in his name to a student displaying “the finest qualities of a community-engaged family physician.” Black said he tries to instill his students with the persistence and perseverance they need to get through undergraduate and graduate degrees if they choose to go beyond jobs as community health workers. It’s a tall order on a campus where 94% of students come from low-income households and many would be the first person in their families to go to college The program draws a wide mix of students — African American, Latino, Hmong, Afghan and Central American refugees — who like Chen are unsure of themselves. “I want my students, when they’re sitting in class in college, to feel like they belong,” Black said. Health Tech students also are assisting with recruiting local residents for PRECISE-ME, a UC Davis study aimed at improving heart disease prevention among underrepresented groups. They also help gather health histories and take vitals under supervision of professionals. They recently trained on handheld diagnostic analyzers that measure blood sugar and cholesterol. A PTS Diagnostics representative came to Sacramento to train them, steering the teens through proper use of glucose strips, lipid panels and lancets. They pricked fingers, collected samples and ran controls to ensure accuracy. “It was really fun to actually do. I feel a lot more confident now,” Tran said. “Having them fly out to us, showing us hands-on, made it feel really honoring.” Black said the student-run clinic brings in health-care practitioners from multiple disciplines — medical, dental and pharmacy professionals — to work side by side with students. UC Davis cardiologists regularly visit the Health Tech Academy to field student questions and encourage them. Hill Physicians has conducted outpatient visits in the school’s clinic, allowing students to watch and train. A dental hygienist has seen patients there as well. Local volunteers like community health worker Peggy Kow also support the program, even allowing students to practice procedures like cholesterol or glucose checks on her. “These young group of people are very enthusiastic,” Kow, 79, said. “They know what they want in life. They are responsible. They are good with technology.” Through partnerships with UCD Health, Kaiser Permanente, WellSpace Health, Pear Suite, and other companies, Black said, Health Tech students acquire the kind of résumé-building experiences most teenagers — even those at elite private schools — can’t imagine. Chen said she came out of her shell and thrived because of the Elk Grove Unified School District program. In addition to partnering with health care companies, Black has built relationships with dozens of community event organizers who invite Health Tech students to set up a booth where they can offer health tips and check vital statistics, Chen said. During an internship at WellSpace Health, Chen assisted a health educator with counseling diabetic patients on nutrition. As a bilingual student, she translated health information for Chinese-speaking families, breaking down complex guidance into language they could act on. At Valley High School, she used the electronic Pear Suite platform to directly connect with Medi-Cal patients seeking resources such as transportation, housing and food. She and other Health Tech students did the research to give them answers, documenting everything they had done in order to be paid by local health systems. When Chen graduated from UC Davis, she returned to Valley High to help lead the student-run clinic, training teens to effectively use Pear Suite and to listen with empathy and treat clients with dignity. Black says those experiences are exactly what sets the program apart. He trains students to see patients through three lenses: What kind of health challenges are they facing? What role do social determinants like food and housing play in perpetuating those challenges? And what kind of adverse childhood experiences may be affecting their current choices? “I want (students) to start thinking of themselves as doctors-in-training right now,” Black said. “By the time they get into medical school, I want them to already have had several 100 patient-like encounters where they feel comfortable interacting with other people. But most importantly, if my students do go on to become doctors, I want them to be doctors who think like community health workers .” That means not just writing a prescription, he said, but also asking if patients can afford it and if they have access to other necessities to support their recovery. Chen said Black works before, during and after school to ensure students have access to exceptional real-life learning experiences. “In a world where a lot of people are just trying to get degrees and get rewards and stuff, he tries to also make sure students get not just education but the intangible things you can’t always learn in school. When I was in high school, I really lacked confidence,” Chen said. “He always was pushing me out of my comfort zone.” Only 44¢ per day