A magnet high school focused on training Alabama’s future healthcare professionals could be closer to opening after securing a multimillion dollar donation from one of the nation’s largest philanthropies.

The Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences Foundation, in partnership with the Alabama Department of Education and Whitfield Regional Hospital in Demopolis, recently received a pledge of $26.4 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies – the “largest known gift to a rural education project in Alabama,” officials announced Wednesday.

The proposed Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences will work with local hospitals and colleges to offer specialized healthcare classes, on-the-job learning and an opportunity for students to earn work credentials and certifications along with their high school diploma.

The residential school is proposed to open in 2026 in Demopolis and will serve between 85-100 high school students.

Funding, however, is contingent on approval of the school by the Alabama legislature, which did not approve state funding for the school last year.

“Years in the making, we’re not to the finish line yet, but we certainly are a lot closer than we were,” Rob Pearson, founding chair of the ASHS Foundation, said at a news conference in Demopolis Wednesday.

If the school is built, it will be the fourth statewide magnet school that is focused on a specialized area of study. The others are the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, the Alabama School of Math and Sciences in Mobile and the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering in Huntsville.

The award is part of a $250 million Bloomberg initiative to support healthcare education in 10 communities across the country. The investment will support school start-up costs including personnel needs and classroom and lab renovations, as well as other instructional costs.

“It’s not a small amount of cash and it’s going to be a gamechanger for the region and for healthcare education for the whole state of Alabama,” said Majd Zayzafoon, a University of Alabama at Birmingham professor who submitted the funding request to Bloomberg. Zayzafoon was appointed to help the state create a strategy for sustaining the school.

In a statement, Gov. Kay Ivey said she looked forward to working with the legislature in the upcoming session to approve the school’s construction.

“This first-of-its-kind school will provide Alabama students with career pathways in healthcare and will serve as a solution to the healthcare workforce shortage across all of rural Alabama,” she said.

The proposal for the school comes as the state grapples with rural hospital closures and labor shortages.

According to the Alabama Department of Labor, the state’s top 20 fastest growing occupations between 2014-2024 include 14 health-related professions. Officials project a need for at least 5,815 new healthcare positions in Alabama each year.

Ivey originally announced plans for the school in her 2023 State of the State address, but lawmakers later removed a $31 million allocation for its construction. In the meantime, officials have been working to raise outside funding for the school’s construction, which was originally estimated to cost $62 million.

In September 2023, a legislative contract review committee approved a $500,000 contract to begin a feasibility study to determine whether the school is needed, and its potential sites. The study is expected to be completed in early February.

Pearson told AL.com that, ahead of the study’s completion, the foundation’s proposal will be updated to include site evaluation, in-state and out-of-state philanthropic support, and more information about the ability to scale the school to graduate more students in the future.

At Wednesday’s press conference, Demopolis Mayor Woody Collins said the city has already secured a site for the school adjacent to the Whitfield Regional Hospital, and conducted a geotechnical and environmental survey of the location.

“The leadership of this community are firmly committed to supporting and making this happen whatever it takes,” he said.