CDPH-approved Nurse Assistant Training Program · Serving Union City honestly Call or text: (408) 256-0763 · Email: staff@calace.training
CAL
ACECAL ACE Nursing AcademyUnion City CNA School Call (408) 256-0763
For future CNAs in Union City

You will trade the shift for the bedside.

If your working life runs along the 880 corridor — warehouse aisles, loading docks, shifts that end when the freight does — here is the honest exchange: about 7 weeks, theory from your own table, hands-on training a short trip south, and a state certificate with your name on it. You will be working in care while others are still waiting for a program to pick them.

Nov2

Your next start: Nov 2, 2026Morning or evening theory

Dec7

Following start: Dec 7, 2026Then the first Monday, monthly

Begin your enrollment →Call (408) 256-0763

Your total is $1,798 — printed in full below, including what it does not cover, and the commute is spelled out just as plainly. Change your mind through the end of Day 1 and you lose nothing.

Nursing assistant students practicing hands-on patient care skills on a training manikin in a clinical skills lab
≈7 wks

From your first class to certified. 160 hours — live theory at home, real clinical floors in San Jose, then your exam one BART ride away.

"He began at 77 — second language, new to the technology — and passed both state exams on his first try, in one day."

Think a career change has an age limit, or a deadline that already passed you? His certificate says otherwise. He trained in this program, toward this exam.

"She spent ten years cleaning a care facility, without a diploma. Today she cares for that facility's residents — as a CNA, in the same building, at a CNA's wage."

She did not need a different past to start. She needed a credential for the work she was already standing next to. If your years went to physical, uncredentialed work — warehouses, cleaning, caregiving at home — this is your mirror.

Your Journey

From Union City, in the order you will actually travel it

Home for the learning that can happen at home. South only for the hours that must be hands-on. Every promise below carries its receipt.

You will become

You will learn on a real schedule — live classes, from your own table

Your theory will meet live on Zoom, Monday to Friday, with a real instructor and a cohort beside you: mornings 9:00 AM–1:00 PM or evenings 5:00–9:00 PM, chosen around the shift you still work. No classroom commute for a single theory hour — and no drifting alone through recordings, either.

The receipt: 60 of your 160 hours are scheduled live-Zoom theory; the other 100 are in-person clinicals. Day 1 is orientation — scrubs, starter kit, and your full schedule in hand before training begins.

A nursing assistant student taking a manual blood pressure reading while an instructor observes
You will be

You will be ready for the real floor — not just the test

You will learn the work on real residents in working facilities — vital signs, transfers, hygiene care, documentation — under real shift conditions. When your first paid shift starts, it will not be your first time doing any of it.

The receipt: 100 clinical hours at Canyon Springs Post Acute and Herman Healthcare Center in San Jose — about a half-hour down I-880 from Union City, on clinical days only.

You will be

You will be trained to the standard the state tests

Your instructors will teach to the California standard from the first week — the same skills and sequence the examiner will use on exam day. Your job between now and then is simple to say and proven to work: show up, every scheduled hour.

The receipt: students who trained exactly this way passed the state certification exam at 99.7% — 922 of 924, November 2023 to November 2025 (school records).

You will become

You will take your state exam one direct ride from home

Your exam waits at the school's own testing center in Milpitas — about 15 miles down I-880, or a direct BART ride from Union City station to Milpitas station, about 18 minutes with no transfer. By exam morning it will be a building you already know, not a strange address in a strange city.

The receipt: CAL ACE is a Credentia and Headmaster regional testing center (RTS #93649), testing 200+ candidates a month. CDPH issues your certification; you will arrive ready for it.

Text (408) 256-0763 about your start date

Your Cost — Promise No. 1

You will know every dollar before you leave the 880 corridor

No phone call required to learn the price, and no total waiting for you at enrollment. Here is the whole number, how it splits across your seven weeks, and the complete short list of what sits outside it.

$1,798your total program tuition
  • Registration — holds your seat$200
  • Due Week 1$800
  • Due Week 5$798
  • Total$1,798
Change your mind on Day 1 and you lose nothing:

Your $200 registration stays refundable through the end of Day 1 — attend orientation, meet the people who will teach you, look around, then decide with real information. From Day 2, refunds are pro-rated at $11.24 per hour, less the registration fee and book/uniform charges where applicable.

To cancel, write to staff@calace.training. Refunds are processed within 5–7 business days.

What your $1,798 carries

  • Your full 160-hour CDPH-approved training — 60 hours of live theory + 100 hours of clinicals
  • Digital textbook
  • One set of teal scrubs with logo
  • Clinical starter kit
  • State Exam Readiness Kit
  • Job tools
  • Your pinning + graduation ceremony

What you pay separately (not in the $1,798)

  • Live Scan fingerprinting ≈ $55
  • AHA BLS CPR ≈ $120
  • TB test ≈ $45
  • Physical exam (cost varies)
  • State certification exam fee (paid to Credentia/Headmaster)

That is the complete list. The exam happens at our own testing center — the fee itself is paid to the testing vendor, not to the school.

How you can pay

Zelle, cash, check, or card — card payments add 2.9%. Want to walk the split line by line first? Call or text (408) 256-0763 and do it with a person, before anything is due.

Enroll at calacenursingacademy.com →

Your Weeks

You will start on a Monday — without moving your life south

Your theory hours will happen at your own table in Union City. Only the hands-on hours ask you to travel — and those are the hours California requires in person. In 2027, cohorts start the first Monday of every month.

Your soonest start · MondayNovember 2, 2026

Start this Monday, and about seven weeks later you will be finishing clinicals and riding to your exam in Milpitas — certified before the year turns.

Your following start · MondayDecember 7, 2026

Need November to change a work schedule, line up childcare, or sort the commute first? Your seat holds with the same $200 — refundable through the end of your Day 1 in December.

Your mornings or your evenings

Theory meets live on Zoom, Monday–Friday: 9:00 AM–1:00 PM or 5:00–9:00 PM. Choose the block your job and family can live with — your instructor and cohort do not change.

Your clinical days

Clinicals typically run 7:00 AM–3:30 PM at the San Jose partner facilities — and weekend clinical cohorts exist if weekdays belong to a job or another school.

Your attendance, stated plainly

The state requires every one of your 160 hours: at most 2 theory sessions and 2 clinical days may be missed, and every absence needs approved make-up.

Call (408) 256-0763 to claim your cohort

Your Training Grounds

You will train in San Jose — and this page will tell you so, straight

Union City has no CAL ACE clinical site, and none is claimed here. What you get instead is a short, known trip: theory at home, clinicals at two named San Jose facilities, and your exam in Milpitas — about 15 miles away by I-880, or one direct BART ride, about 18 minutes, from Union City station to Milpitas station.

East San Jose

Canyon Springs Post Acute

Your rotations in East San Jose — hands-on resident care in a working post-acute setting, typically 7:00 AM–3:30 PM on clinical days.

View on Google Maps →
Central San Jose

Herman Healthcare Center

Your second rotation site in Central San Jose — the other half of the San Jose pair Union City students train at, down I-880.

View on Google Maps →

Your neighbors are already in these cohorts:

DecotoOld AlvaradoAlvaradoUnion LandingFour CornersKennedy ParkJames Logan area FremontNewarkHayward

The receipt for the neighborhood claim: 20 CAL ACE students already call Union City home (2026 registrations, school records) — from Decoto to Old Alvarado. Your campus and testing center: 1535 Landess Ave, Unit 103, Milpitas, CA 95035. BART runs direct from Union City station, behind James Logan High School, to Milpitas station. Get directions →

Text the Union City line — (408) 256-0763

After Graduation

Graduation is the middle of your story

A career change is not finished at the certificate — it is finished when the new career holds: the first job, the renewals that never slip, the next credential when you are ready to climb. That whole stretch is built into the school you are about to join.

You will have

Our name goes on your application

You will not apply for your first CNA job as a stranger with a printout. You trained on real floors where staff watched your work; when you apply, your school signs its name to a referral letter for you — staking the standing it holds with those facilities on you, personally.

The receipt: graduates work at employers including Kaiser (~22), Stanford (~20), and El Camino Health (~15) — figures reported by the school. Employment is not guaranteed; hiring decisions belong to employers.

You will have

You will never watch your certificate expire

Your certificate will ask for 48 hours every two years — at least 12 in a year, no more than 24 of them online. You will not track that alone on a kitchen calendar: in-person classes in Milpitas plus unlimited online CEUs will watch your certification birthday with you and nudge you before a deadline, not after. And in year ten, when a registry question or a renewal panic finds you, you will call (408) 256-0763 — and we will still pick up the phone.

The receipt: 160 in-person CE units (CDPH-approved provider NAC #7118) + online CE through OnlineCeUnits (NAC #7384), unlimited for $19.50/year, with birthday-keyed tracking and reminders.

You will become

You will take your career with you

Life may not keep you in Alameda County forever — your credential does not have to stay behind when you go. Most states allow a certified California CNA to transfer or endorse into their nurse aide registry; each state's rules, fees, and paperwork differ, and some ask for additional steps, so check your destination state before you move. You will arrive with your training record, certification, and renewal history in order.

The receipt: endorsement is the state system's door, open to certified CNAs in most states — rules vary by state, and your school will help you read your destination's requirements.

You will have

You will have more doors open

The CNA does not have to be the last line on your resume. Your next credentials will sit at the same school: Home Health Aide $650 · Restorative Nursing Assistant $600 · BLS $90 — each one opening settings and shifts the CNA alone does not, on the timeline you choose.

The receipt: live, priced programs on the main site — no new school to vet, no records to chase, no starting over with strangers.

You will belong

You will belong — even though your campus is one BART ride away

Twenty of your neighbors already made this trip before you (see below) — and belonging here was never about a street address. You will be pinned with your cohort, renewed alongside your class, and welcomed back by name whenever you return: for a CE class, a career question, or someday a classroom of your own.

The receipt: "I am a CNA, my wife is a CNA, and now we are building a workforce of CNAs by multiplying ourselves." — Dr. Cliff S. Roperez, DBA, LVN, Founder. Every cohort is pinned and graduated in ceremony, included in your tuition.

You will share

You will come back and teach it

Someday the new student asking how the commute works could be listening to you. Graduates come back as CE instructors and — after earning their LVN and the instructor experience the state requires — as CNA instructors, teaching from the front of rooms they once learned in.

The receipt: an alumni instructor track is part of how this school grows — the front of the classroom is a real destination, reached by the credential path the state sets.

A nursing assistant in scrubs using a stethoscope while caring for a seated patient
For goal-getters

You will be first in line.

Planning to become an LVN? Join the CAL ACE LVN Priority List. Our LVN program is in development and has not yet been approved — CAL ACE does not currently offer an LVN program. Priority-list members will be the first invited to apply when enrollment opens.

Founding-cohort commitment: if you completed your CNA training at CAL ACE and you enroll in our LVN program when it launches, we will return 100% of the CNA tuition you paid us, under the written terms of the commitment. Ask us for the terms before you count on them — we'll hand them to you in writing. Call or text (408) 256-0763 to join the list.

For Families

You will watch her become the family's first healthcare professional

You will know exactly where she is and what it costs: fixed live class times from home, attendance tracked, clinicals supervised at two named San Jose facilities, the exam in Milpitas — and every dollar printed on this page before she starts.

Bienvenidos

  • El programa dura 160 horas — unas 7 semanas — con teoría en vivo por Zoom desde su casa en Union City, por la mañana o por la tarde-noche.
  • Verá el costo completo antes de inscribirse: $1,798 en total, con el plan de pagos publicado aquí.
  • Las prácticas clínicas son presenciales y supervisadas en San José; el examen estatal es en Milpitas, a unos 18 minutos en BART.
  • Se lo decimos con franqueza: no hay prácticas clínicas en Union City — el viaje es corto y solo en los días de práctica.
  • Desde los 16 años, con el consentimiento de los padres — sin necesidad de diploma de secundaria.

Un familiar puede ayudar con la traducción cuando llame — con gusto le atendemos: (408) 256-0763.

Instruction and the California state certification exam are in English.
Las clases y el examen estatal de certificación son en inglés.

Maligayang pagdating

  • Programang 160 oras, matatapos sa humigit-kumulang 7 linggo, na may live na teorya sa Zoom mula sa inyong tahanan sa Union City, tuwing umaga o gabi.
  • Makikita ninyo ang buong halaga bago magpatala: $1,798 sa kabuuan, na may nakalathalang iskedyul ng pagbabayad dito.
  • Ang mga clinical ay personal at may superbison sa San Jose; ang pagsusulit ng estado ay sa Milpitas, humigit-kumulang 18 minuto sa BART.
  • Sasabihin namin nang tapat: walang clinical site sa Union City — maikli ang biyahe at sa mga araw lamang ng clinical.
  • Mula 16 taong gulang pataas, na may pahintulot ng magulang — hindi kailangan ng diploma ng hayskul.

Ang isang kapamilya ay maaaring tumulong sa pagsasalin kapag tumawag kayo — ikinagagalak naming kayong tulungan: (408) 256-0763.

Instruction and the California state certification exam are in English.
Ang pagtuturo at ang pagsusulit para sa sertipikasyon ng estado ng California ay nasa Ingles.

For parents of 16- and 17-year-olds — and of young adults

Your student enrolls with parent/guardian consent, and you are welcome in the conversation from the first call — including families around James Logan High School, steps from the BART station your student will ride to the Milpitas campus. This is a fixed, supervised schedule: live classes at set times, attendance tracked, no drifting.

Clinical training is in person at named facilities — Canyon Springs Post Acute (East San Jose) and Herman Healthcare Center (Central San Jose) — under instructor supervision. You will see her working in about two months: monthly starts, ~7 weeks, her state exam at the school's own testing center in Milpitas.

Questions? Call or text (408) 256-0763, or visit the Milpitas campus — 1535 Landess Ave, Unit 103, Milpitas, CA 95035 — and meet the team before she starts.

Call or text (408) 256-0763 with questions

Before You Even Enroll

Start finding out tonight — for free

Work through 105 original practice questions with answers and rationales, written by CAL ACE as a study aid. They are not state exam questions — they are a free way to feel how the real exam thinks before you commit to anything.

Becoming certified still requires completing a CDPH-approved CNA program and passing the California state certification exam. This is simply your head start on both.

Get the free practice test on the main site

Your Questions, Answered Straight

Before you decide

I live in Union City — where do I actually go, and how do I get there?

Here is the honest map. Your theory — 60 hours — never leaves home: live Zoom classes from Union City. Your clinicals — 100 hours — are in San Jose at Canyon Springs Post Acute and Herman Healthcare Center, about a half-hour down I-880; CAL ACE has no clinical site in Union City, and this page will not pretend otherwise. Your state exam is in Milpitas, about 15 miles away — roughly 20 minutes by car on I-880, or a direct BART ride from Union City station to Milpitas station, about 18 minutes, no transfer. You travel only for the hours California requires in person.

What will this cost me, exactly?

$1,798 total tuition: $200 registration, $800 due in Week 1, $798 due in Week 5. It covers your training plus a digital textbook, one set of teal scrubs with logo, a clinical starter kit, a State Exam Readiness Kit, job tools, and your pinning + graduation.

Paid separately (not included):

  • Live Scan fingerprinting ≈ $55
  • AHA BLS CPR ≈ $120
  • TB test ≈ $45
  • Physical exam (cost varies)
  • State certification exam fee (paid to Credentia/Headmaster)

Payment methods: Zelle, cash, check, or card (card payments add 2.9%).

I work warehouse or logistics shifts — can this fit my life?

That is exactly the life this schedule was built around. Pick morning theory (9:00 AM–1:00 PM) or evening theory (5:00–9:00 PM), live on Zoom from home, and choose a weekend clinical cohort if your weekdays belong to a shift. About seven weeks later, the shift you are fitting school around can become the job you leave.

What will my weeks actually look like?

About 7 weeks, 160 hours. Your theory — 60 hours — meets live on Zoom, Monday–Friday, in the morning session (9:00 AM–1:00 PM) or the evening session (5:00–9:00 PM), with a real instructor and a fixed rhythm. Your clinicals — 100 hours — are in person in San Jose, typically 7:00 AM–3:30 PM, with weekend cohorts available. Day 1 is orientation.

Where will I take my state exam — and is the fee in my tuition?

You will test at CAL ACE's own Credentia and Headmaster regional testing center (RTS #93649) on the Milpitas campus — a familiar building by exam day, one direct BART ride from home. The exam fee is not included in the $1,798 — you pay it separately, directly to Credentia/Headmaster. CDPH issues your certification once you pass.

What if I change my mind?

Your $200 registration is refundable through the end of Day 1 — attend orientation, meet everyone, then decide. After Day 1, refunds are pro-rated at $11.24 per hour, less the registration fee and book/uniform charges where applicable, and processed within 5–7 business days. To cancel, write to staff@calace.training.

What do I need to enroll?

Be 16 or older — with parent/guardian consent if you are under 18 — and bring an SSN or ITIN. That is the list: no high school diploma or GED is required. Your CPR must be American Heart Association BLS; online or non-AHA certificates do not qualify.

Will you help me find my first job?

You trained inside real facilities, and when you apply, our name goes on your application — your school will vouch for you with a referral letter. Graduates work at employers including Kaiser, Stanford, and El Camino Health (figures reported by the school). Employment is not guaranteed; hiring decisions belong to employers.

How will I keep my license renewed — and what about LVN someday?

California asks 48 hours every two years — at least 12 in each year, no more than 24 online. Your renewal lives here: in-person CE in Milpitas (NAC #7118, 160 units) and OnlineCeUnits (NAC #7384) — unlimited online courses for $19.50/year, tracked against your certification birthday. On LVN: not yet — our LVN program is in development and has not yet been approved, and CAL ACE does not currently offer an LVN program. Join the LVN Priority List to be first invited when enrollment opens; CNA graduates who enroll when it launches receive 100% of the CNA tuition they paid us back, under the written terms of the founding-cohort commitment — ask for the terms in writing before you count on them.

Still deciding? Call (408) 256-0763

You will be working while others are still waiting to be chosen.

Nov 2 or Dec 7 — hold your seat with $200 (refundable through the end of Day 1), and start the 7 weeks between the shift you have and the career you want.

Enroll now on the main siteText (408) 256-0763
Call Text Enroll →