Dear Parents,
We are pleased to start offering CPR and AED training to all of the students in our Health classes starting this school year, 2017-2018. Beginning this school year, the State of Michigan mandates that all public schools in Michigan offer this as part of the Health curriculum in 6th - 12th grades. We believe that these skills are invaluable, so we have decided to offer the instruction to our students as well, even though it is not required for us to do so.
A blog posted by the American Heart Association News published on January 4th, 2017 stated, “According to the AHA, more than 350,000 Americans suffer sudden cardiac arrests outside a hospital each year, and only 12 percent survive. For each minute that passes without CPR or defibrillation the chances of survival decrease by 7 percent to 10 percent. That gives emergency medical services very little time to get to victims, which is why bystander CPR is so important, said Brad Dornbos, a firefighter and EMS coordinator for the City of Wyoming Department of Public Safety Fire Services in Michigan.” The full article can be found at https://news.heart.org/new-michigan-law-requires-cpr-training-to-graduate-high-school/.
Starting on December 11th and continuing through December 18th, your student(s) will be involved in lecture, video and hands on skill sessions to learn how to do CPR and use an AED in an emergency situation. We will be following the American Heart Association curriculum and have many trained instructors on the Mercy staff to offer support to us during this unit.
The students will receive a certificate of completion when they have successfully demonstrated their skills. If they would like to formally test and pay $20 to the American Heart Association for official certification, they can arrange that with their Health teacher.
The state of Michigan has the Good Samaritan law that will protect your student if she chooses to administer CPR or use an AED machine in an emergency situation. More information regarding that specific bill can be found at https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/1999-2000/billanalysis/House/htm/1999-HLA-4420-B.htm.
If your student is already in possession of a CPR certification from either the American Heart Association or American Red Cross, they can opt out of this unit by showing their Health teacher their current card before Monday, December 11th, or they may attend the class as a refresher. They will still be required to know this material for their final exam.
We look forward to adding this to our curriculum to help get more people CPR and AED trained.
Yours in Learning,
Brandi Lavely and Ann Jamieson