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WAUKEE, Iowa — The Aspiring Professional Experience program, or APEX, through the Waukee School District offers students the opportunity to get hands-on experience with cutting edge technology.  

Life Care Services, or LCS, owns senior living communities throughout the country. Workforce issues like a lack of nurses are among the biggest challenges organizations like LCS face.  

The LCS Foundation made the strategic decision to invest their dollars locally by introducing high school juniors and seniors to advanced science, nursing, biomedical, and research concepts and practices that are usually reserved for graduate students.

“Right now, we have some cancer cells growing in our incubator right back there right now. So, it really just bumps up the capabilities of the lab as a whole,” Jared Almadinger, APEX medical and bioscience research instructor, said. “The other fantastic thing on the side of those was not just the biosafety cabinet, but the automated cell counter as well.”

Ben Every will graduate from Dallas Center Grimes in a few weeks and wants to pursue a degree in biomedical chemistry at Central College. He is also one of the many students taking advantage of the APEX program.

“Junior year of school I took regular chemistry and it just kind of clicked and it was really fun,” Every said. “We did some titrations, we did a lot of the calculations and it just like it clicked like no other class I’ve taken.”

Students from seven different school districts are spending time this semester doing lab experiments at APEX in Waukee, and are learning how to treat patients at the bedside. The LCS Foundation purchased six “rooms in a box” with hospital beds, which allow students to train in a hospital or senior living community setting.

“LCS is very excited about our partnership here locally with APEX and our goal is to really meet students where they’re at in their education,” Baylie Panzi with the LCS Foundation said. “And we do that through a lot of different ways. So scholarships, as one example, speaking engagements as another. And as you’ve seen here, donations is definitely something that we partner on or something similar to the hospital beds that you see here.”

Some students say their regular high schools don’t offer the curriculum or equipment to prepare them for college and eventual tech careers like biomedical chemistry.

“I think the most interesting thing that I’ve learned has been getting to work with live cells since, you know, that’s not a common experience in the classroom, you know, learning about like keeping things sterile and like, making sure, like everything has a certain way to be has been really interesting for me,” Lily Spahr, a student from Waukee Northwest, said.

Other companies also partner with APEX to introduce the students to varying industries and experiences.

More than 100 students have taken advantage of the APEX program since 2021. Several students are working toward obtaining their certified nursing assistant (CNA) certification.