'There are options”: Career Tech High School offers options to students seeking more out of school

There has been a lot of talk about readying students to enter the workforce, preparing youth to make it on their own, and generally getting students ready for life.

The Matanuska Susitna Borough School District has made it a priority to offer Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses in all the high schools, from welding and automotive courses to agriculture and healthcare.

A unique feature in the district is that students have the option to step away from their schools for a few hours a day or week to attend other schools that offer the CTE courses they desire, while maintaining attendance with their “home” school.

“The district allows for that flexibility. We see 50 to 70 kids going out the door, but also see 50 to 70 kids coming in for our courses. It’s a district-wide movement that occurs here.”

Here is the Mat-Su Career and Technical High School (CTHS). Rated the #1 school in Alaska during the 2021-2022 school year, the traditional high school offers more than reading, writing, and arithmetic to students, offering 8 career pathways geared to help students for career and college success.

“CTE can be an option for everybody-for those that are post-secondary bound and for those that want to get into the job market right after high school,” says Jason Ross, who has been the CTHS Principal for the past 3 years.

The CTHS campus, with its 710 students, can feel more like a college campus with the open Commons and library.

“We offer health, business, fitness, tourism and hospitality, building, transportation, human services, and natural resources,” says Ross.

Transportation will focus on aviation, diesel power, and process technology. One of the newest programs that CTHS is offering is in the aviation field, which focuses on Ground School basics and the use of flying simulators.

“The aviation lab offers simulators and we’re lucky to have an industry expert for Guardian for many years before switching gears and wanting to teach the class,” says Ross of Aviation Instructor Steve Novak, who was teaching this day while touring the school.

Careers in aviation, preparation for the industry, airport safety, and the dynamics of flight are all surveyed in aviation studies. Upon completion of a final, students can obtain their ground school endorsement, the first component of becoming a pilot.

The school also has an agreement with Tango Flight, which sponsors a program in which students work to build a plane, under supervision of advisors to ensure they are doing the right work, starting with the cataloguing of nearly 1 million parts. CTHS has the distinction of being the only school in the state to offer the Tango Flight program, which lets students apply classroom knowledge to building an actual, FAA certified airplane.

“Tango Flight has done14 of these across the nation, and the fastest was done in 14 months. We plan on taking 2 years, especially because we’ve made a couple mistakes, which means we have to re-order parts, and that can take a while.”

In the healthcare pathway, students can take any number of courses in the healthcare field, including dental and veterinary care, introduction to pharmacy, medical terminology, and medical math.

Geared towards juniors and seniors, the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) semester course focuses on the classroom setting in preparation for the clinical, hands on experience in a health care setting, then later is mostly composed of clinical rotations and skill refinement. The students get to practice a wide array of patient care experiences in the practical lab, sometimes practicing on each other and any staff that wants to assist.

When completed, students have the option for the State of Alaska CNA certification exam. Most of the students in the CNA class come from other schools, and all seem to have plans to move further into the healthcare field later on.

In the culinary arts class, there was no baking or cooking, but the students are preparing their competitive team to head to Washington D.C. to take part in the Culinary Program/ProStart in May.

In the building wing, students have worked to build a tiny home, a multi-year project similar to the aviation class building a plane.

“It will be for sale in the spring,” says Ross, who adds that the profits will be used to start more projects later on.

One exciting project the school is looking at doing is a cooperative project with the Lower Kuskokwim School District to build teacher housing. The houses would be built at CTHS and barged to the Lower Kuskokwim.

“There’s need for about 50 homes up there, according to their superintendent. That should keep us busy for a while.

For the upcoming school year, Ross says that the school will be “Amp-ing” up the Algebra courses

“We’re going to try a new class next year, called ‘AMPED.’ It’s a combination approach to Algebra that’s very hands-on, and mixed with the Business class where they’re going to create their own business.” Ross says the business plan will be to create and sell t-shirts

The ‘AMPED’ course is part of the much bigger ‘AMPED on Algebra’ course in which all objectives and standards of Algebra are taught, but with real world, project based lessons, labs, and activities. The intent is to create a more robust learning environment for students, allowing them to connect what for many can be a tough subject with an entrepreneurial setting.

“There is a class that follows called ‘Geometry in Construction,’ that we hope to offer 2 years from now. We find that students that may not be interested in business, the success rate of passing Algebra 1, which is the most failed class in the Valley, goes way up with this hands-on approach.”

As the school wraps up the lottery format for student entry, Ross expects his student enrollment to grow, with the goal of 200 students per grade. But more than that, he wants people to know of all the opportunities that lie within CTE.

“There are opportunities across the entire Valley to help kids achieve their goals. This (CTHS) is not the only one. If you’re interested in welding, Colony has an amazing program. Palmer has a wonderful Ag (agricultural) program. There are opportunities no matter where you go. We want kids to know that there are options.”