Preparing students for a future career starts well before high school. The classes students take as early as eighth grade give them an opportunity to explore various paths that match their interests, skills and abilities.
Dana Daugharthy spoke to USD 257 board members earlier this week about Career and Technical Education Pathways. He and Lisa Wicoff serve as the district’s CTE Coordinators, working with students, staff and administrators to determine a framework for the courses and keep track of student progress.
CTE is a general term for an array of educational programs that focus on preparing students for future careers. It includes college-ready courses in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects, as well as internships and technical certification programs such as those found at the Regional Rural Technical Center at LaHarpe.
Pathways are classes students can take to introduce concepts they’ll need for specific careers. For example, most students will take algebra or geometry classes that include engineering concepts vital to numerous careers. That could lead them down a path toward several careers in STEM, health sciences and more.
CTE is divided into “career clusters” that include such things as information technology, human services, health, manufacturing, education and more. Different pathways are offered under those categories, such as a pathway for early childhood development under the human services cluster.
Iola High School offers 19 pathways from an available 36 designed by the Kansas Department of Education.
School districts receive funding based on the number of students taking such courses, so it’s important to offer classes that will interest and motivate students to continue learning about a a subject.
Each year, administrators and the CTE team evaluate the pathways offered at IHS. For next year, IHS will replace four pathways.
The new pathways are mobile equipment maintenance (a pathway offered through the new automotive maintenance program at RRTC), biomedical, biochemistry, and programming and software development.
Those pathways replace web and digital communication, business management and entrepreneurship, business finance, and government and public administration.
Which pathways are chosen depends on several factors, Daugharthy said. Perhaps fewer students are interested in that pathway, or no teacher is qualified to teach the subject.
Some pathways start in eighth grade, with introductory classes such as math and science. That gives them more options to try different pathways in high school. They aren’t stuck with their choice; they can pursue multiple pathways at once or make changes as they go.
“THE BIGGEST challenge I have is communicating what this is,” Daugharthy said.
His goal is to increase student participation, starting with an increase in awareness about the program. Completing a pathway means a student has passed three credits in that area with at least a 70% grade, and qualifies for an industry recognized certification or a third-party assessment.
That means many IHS students will take at least one class that qualifies as a pathway, but significantly fewer will complete the entire pathway. Most of those who do will complete courses at the RRTC.
“This is very important for the district because we get funding for this,” Superintendent Stacey Fager said after Daugharthy’s presentation to the board. “The time students spend in those programs is a big deal.”
