A big smile blooms on the eighth grader’s face, and her eyes twinkle as she imagines a future career at the gleaming medical buildings across the street from her Aurora middle school.

“Wow!” says Riziki “RiRi” Feza, 13.

Asked what she thinks of when she looks across Peoria Street and sees UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital and many other buildings on the Anschutz Medical Campus, RiRi sums up her hopes in two words: “Opportunity and excitement.”

RiRi is among several eighth graders at North Middle School eager to apply to attend a new health sciences high school in Aurora, scheduled to open next fall on the grounds of their school near the intersection of North Peoria Street and East Montview Avenue.

Born in Tanzania, RiRi lives with her mom, three older brothers and other relatives in a home near her school and the medical campus. And now, she can envision a path that could lead her to a promising career across the street — or at another medical facility — someday.

RiRi is considering becoming a nursing assistant.

“I like the idea of helping my family,” she said.

The new school will be called Aurora HEART Health Sciences High School. HEART stands for “healthcare, education, access, readiness and training.”

The school is a partnership between Aurora Public Schools, the Community College of Aurora and UCHealth.

Students will gain hands-on experience, training and college credit at the new school, which is under construction now. They’ll get to choose from five career pathways: nursing, surgical technology and sterile processing, respiratory therapy, behavioral health and medical imaging.

Applications to attend the school open this month.

A new health sciences school to jumpstart healthcare careers

RiRi and several other eighth graders wore navy blue medical scrubs and welcomed dignitaries — including Colorado’s governor —  to a recent groundbreaking celebration for Aurora’s newest high school. Their scrubs symbolized the careers these students might someday enjoy. The students can’t wait to see the new school emerge from a field north of the middle school.

David Aung, 13, thinks he’d like to become a surgeon.

He’s seen doctors on TV shows and in documentaries.

He and his family members think the new high school will help him make his dreams a reality.

“My mom tells me to focus on what I want to become in the future,” David said.

Along with medicine, David thinks it would be fun to be a professional volleyball player. For now, he’s leaning more toward the medical path, and the new high school will help him get there, he said.

“I’m imagining a high school that is really professional,” David said. “I think science is really interesting, and hands-on learning will help me learn more.”

David was born in Malaysia, and his family is Burmese. He lives with his mom and four younger siblings.

He sees medicine as a path to an interesting career that will offer economic security.

“I want good pay and something that can help support our family. I’m pretty poor right now. We live in an apartment, and we don’t have a lot of things right now. I’ll apply to the high school as soon as I can. I have big dreams for my future,” David said.

Envisioning a career in behavioral healthcare to support people with disabilities

Osbaldo Contreras, 13, also wants to help his family.

He’s interested in pursuing the behavioral health track at the new high school.

He has seen healthcare workers doing their jobs in his home.

“I have a little brother who’s autistic and an older sister who can’t walk and talk. She has to be fed through a tube, and sometimes I see therapists come to my house to help my little brother and my older sister,” Osbaldo said.

He likes the idea of being part of the first class at Aurora HEART Health Sciences High School.

A group of 125 ninth graders is slated to start at the school in the fall of 2027. And administrators will add an additional class of ninth graders each year.

“It will be brand new,” Osbaldo said. “You get to be the first generation at a new high school, and you get to choose your own path.”

Osbaldo has deep empathy for kids who struggle, including his 17-year-old sister who was born with disabilities, and his 8-year-old brother, who was identified as being on the autism spectrum when he was a toddler.

“He can’t speak. He has a tablet and presses buttons to communicate,” said Osbaldo, who also has two other siblings.

He wishes kids would be kinder to those who need help.

“They can’t help that they have special needs,” Osbaldo said.

“I want to go to the school for behavioral health because I want to help people,” he said. “But I don’t want to do surgery because I don’t like blood.”

Learning about healthcare in ‘real life:’ State-of-the-art classrooms and hospital field trips

Leaders with Aurora Public Schools, the Community College of Aurora, and UCHealth have worked for years to bring the new health sciences high school to life.

UCHealth experts have supported the school’s architects and builders in designing classroom spaces that will look like clinics and hospitals rather than traditional classrooms. And there will be plenty of opportunities for UCHealth professionals to offer hands-on lessons at the school.

Aurora HEART Health Sciences students also will get to do field trips to the medical campus to see how a large hospital and academic medical center operate. Robbie Dumond, chief operating officer for University of Colorado Hospital, spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony on Oct. 8 and shared that he began working toward a career in healthcare in high school.

“At 15, I became an emergency medical technician (EMT) in my home state of Maine. This new school is very near and dear to my heart,” Dumond said. “I am where I am today because of experiences back in high school.”

He joked that students at the new Aurora school will have the “easiest commute ever,” coming to the medical campus from their school directly across the street.

“Students are going to have access to simulation labs and clinical environments,” Dumond said. “We can’t wait to host them at our hospital. These experiences are going to help students see what healthcare is like in real life.”

University of Colorado Hospital is one of 15 UCHealth hospitals throughout Colorado, and supporting surrounding communities is central to UCHealth’s mission of improving lives.

“We’re proud to call Aurora home,” Dumond said. “It’s important that we invest in this community.”

He and others can’t wait to see students walk through the doors of the new school next fall so they can “discover new dreams and new opportunities.”

Making education more relevant and giving students ‘a running start’ to great careers

Gov. Jared Polis attended the groundbreaking festivities and said Colorado leaders are boosting the quality of education for all students by making schools more relevant to careers.

“This high school will help more kids feel that connection to more meaningful work,” Polis said. “They can thrive here, get the real skills they need, working with computer models, working with physical models, being able to get right out of high school with an EMT certification, phlebotomy certification, nurse assistant certification.”

Some can start working in these careers right after high school, Polis said.

Others can begin earning college credit and will have what Polis called “a running start” to nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors or health care administrators.

‘An incredible opportunity right here in Aurora’

Danielle Tomwing, vice president for the Aurora Public Schools Board of Education, spoke about her excitement as she imagined students walking through the doors of the new school less than a year from now.

“They will attend a school designed around our community and one of the most important industries, where traditional academics are connected directly to hands-on learning and future opportunities in healthcare,” Tomwing said.

Aurora voters passed a bond measure to make the new school possible.

“We want to invest in modern learning environments that respond to the needs of our students and prepare them for opportunities right here in our community,” Tomwing said. “We cannot wait to see this building filled with students, exploring their interests, discovering new possibilities and preparing for futures in healthcare and beyond.”

Aurora Public Schools Superintendent Michael Giles, Jr. called the new school “one of a kind in the state of Colorado,” and said it will provide excellent opportunities to students “right here in Aurora.”

“We know that talented young people throughout our community are ready to dream big about their futures. Simultaneously, we have world-class healthcare and higher education institutions right here in our own backyard. So, the question that we set out to answer was, “How do we bring these things together to better our community?’ And this new health science high school is that answer.”

Giles credited the vital partnerships with Aurora Public Schools, the Community College of Aurora and UCHealth for making a new vision and a new educational model possible.

“Together, we have an opportunity to show our students that some of the most exciting educational career opportunities in our region are not somewhere far away from here, but they’re right here in our own backyard,” Giles said.

A bridge from high school to college and careers

Community College of Aurora President Mordecai Ian Brownlee said the new school will provide extraordinary opportunities for students.

“We are creating a bridge between the classroom, career and college,” Brownlee said. “Students will have opportunities to earn college credentials while completing their high school education.

“Think about what that could mean for a young person,” Brownlee said. “We think about first-generation learners as we think about this community as a whole. We have an opportunity to…advance economic mobility and opportunity, reaching every one of our students.

“A ninth grader can walk through these doors and begin to see themselves as a nurse, a behavioral health professional, a healthcare leader,” Brownlee said.

As leaders held ceremonial shovels, Brownlee said they were “turning the earth today” and “tomorrow, we will turn proximity into possibility.”