SOUTH DEERFIELD — With Frontier Regional School’s growing emphasis on hands-on experiences, students in its CPR, first aid and biology courses got the opportunity Wednesday to learn about one of the most unique professions in the region.

Gathered on the blacktop off the school’s playing fields, students were able to experience the landing of a LifeStar medical helicopter, as well as talk to its crew members about the education needed to be part of a flying public safety team and what the job looks like on a day-to-day basis.

The visit was part of the school’s growing Innovation Pathways program, which provides classes designed to build students’ knowledge and skills in a specific, in-demand industry before they graduate high school. Currently, Frontier offers health care/social assistance and advanced manufacturing classes for students and has been working with businesses to set up internships in the coming months.

“Events like this give students an opportunity to see how the skills they learn in class are employed in the real world; it makes what they learn come alive,” said Christine Wu, Frontier’s community outreach coordinator. “Our goal is to get them to see what they’re learning in the real world. The kids are really loving it.”

Frontier launched the program in 2022 after receiving a $150,000 state Capital Skills and Innovation Pathways grant, and Principal George Lanides said it has proved to be a very successful program.

“It scratches an itch; people like hands-on stuff,” Lanides said, adding that the school hopes to build on the success of the program in the future. “We definitely want to keep this going, we want it to go strong.”

Heather Lawton, the middle and high school’s Health Department chair, said 40 kids are enrolled in the CPR and first aid class alone, adding that Wednesday’s visit was a huge success, so much so that she joked she “couldn’t get them to go back to class.”

When the helicopter landed, pilot John Goldsnider, flight paramedic Amanda DeTorio and flight nurse Joe Reale hopped out and gave students a tour of their EC145, which is LifeStar’s smaller, spare vehicle when other helicopters are out of service. The trio took questions from students and shared their educational and career experiences that led them to working in a specialized emergency response role.

Senior Hailey Hutkoski, who is enrolled in the CPR and first aid class, said she’s glad Frontier offers this type and programming.

“I think that more schools around us should have the same opportunity to experience this,” she said.

Echoing that sentiment was junior Sophia Pinardi, who said she enrolled in the CPR class to learn the life-saving procedure. She added she’s grateful for the chance to pursue studying a topic outside the realm of what is traditionally offered in high school.

“It was really interesting,” Pinardi said. “These new opportunities Frontier has brought us gives us new views on what our future can entail.”

Wednesday’s landing was just one of two visits from public safety agencies. LifeStar was supposed to join South County EMS for a joint event the previous week, but flights were canceled twice due to foggy conditions, so South County EMS gave its own tour and equipment demonstrations on Oct. 5. The cancellations, Wu said, actually worked out well because it gave students more time to spend with each individual agency.

In the past month, Frontier’s Innovation Pathways program has also brought in lifeguards to the CPR course and a field trip to Pelican Products for manufacturing students. In the future, Wu said the school is trying to work with Baystate Franklin Medical Center to arrange a mock patient admissions activity for health care students.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.