"When are we ever going to have use this stuff?"
Every person who has ever sat through a less than exciting class has had that thought run through their head.
While the abstract concepts of rhombuses and mitochondria don't necessarily carry over into the average person's career, Camden Fairview High School has a set of programs that do provide real world skills to 9-12 graders.
Community leaders toured campus on Thursday, March 2, and received a first hand look at the school's Career and Technical Education classes.
"I have been fortunate enough to be the career coach since 2015, so I'm working on the 8th graduating class today. So it has really been a pleasure," Patricia Burks, career coach for Camden Fairview, said. "The CTE programs are wonderful programs and we just wanted to let people know the things that our young people are doing, and what these teachers are teaching them."
Camden Fairview Superintendent Tara Armstrong stated, "CTE is a way that we provide opportunities to our students to have experience in work ready skills and learn about things that they are interested in that might be part of their career goals one day. Whether they go straight into the workplace when they finish school or they go to some sort of higher ed and continue their education, it gives them an edge and it also increases graduation rates, statistically."
According to a press release from the Arkansas Department of Education, the Division of Career and Technical Education offers 34 designated career pathways, with high schools providing at least three programs of study. During the 2021-2022 school year, approximately 115,500 Arkansas students were enrolled in CTE courses, with 45% of CTE graduates also possessing an industry certification upon high school graduation.
According to ADE data, the graduation rate for CTE concentrators, or students who complete two of three CTE classes in a program of study, is nearly perfect -- 98% -- with a post-secondary education placement rate of almost 82%.
At a program before the tours, Camden Mayor Charlotte Young read a proclamation supporting CTE Month in Arkansas and Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development Executive Director James Lee Silliman handed out Career Ready Certificates, credentials which measure and certify "the essential work skills needed for success in jobs across industries and occupations," according to the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services.
The attendees then divided into groups and toured the classrooms of Camden Fairview to see students taking part in hands-on learning.
One such class was Dallas McCullough's STEM course in which Dason Connely and Max Bradshaw were learning how to build a robot which would later be used in competitions.
Before this class, neither Max nor Dason had any prior experience with the coding they used to program their robot. Both students showed the wheel movements and sensors of their creation to onlookers.
Agriculture teacher Christy Reynolds displayed metal working that Camden Fairview student Xaviera Kaebel-Burgett won second-place with at a recent Girl Power to the Max event, an all-female metal cutting and laser engraving competition.
While attendees admired this work, two students groomed a dog in a separate room.
Reynolds said, "These are my level three pet science students. They're on my animal science pathway and they are working on getting their pet grooming certifications.
"So, they take pictures of before the groom and after the groom. And each one of them has to groom a certain number of dogs and we submit that and they have to take a test for their certification. So far they have groomed probably eight dogs. We groom one a day. It's all that we can handle," she continued.
Other classes offered unique demonstrations, such as Miriam Shoemaker's Sports Medicine class using ready made ice packs to learn to treat potential injuries such as sprains and cramps, or Amanda James' Family and Consumer Science Class demonstrating a high tech version of an infant that students take care of overnight.
One of the newer editions to the CTE program is Ashley Lilly's Audio/Visual Tech & Film class.
While many high schoolers are busy making TikToks and Instagram Reels, students in Lilly's class are doing a much different type of filming and presentation.
Inside the video laboratory are high definition cameras, a control room, a fleet of Macs for editing videos, a green screen and a recording booth.
Students use this equipment to film football games, a weekly program shown during homeroom, or, as was happening during the tour, direct and produce short films.
The tour ended at the multipurpose building with NJROTC instructor Kyle Smith, whose students led the tours from room to room.
"A lot of things that we do is about self-disciplining," Smith said, "doing the hard stuff you don't want to do because you have to do it . Uniforms, you know, they wear it once a week teaching them how to dress professionally, how to pay attention to the details.
"We teach them drill. It's fun to go do competitions. But the real focus behind actual drilling and marching (is) working as a team, because the only thing more difficult than going out there and performing your role is performing it in sync with someone else," he continued.
Indyia Morris said, "It's taught me leadership, it's taught me how to follow people, learn how to lead, learn how to follow. It's taught me how to come out of my comfort zone."
But it's not all marching and drilling; recently the NJROTC added a drone team, where students learn to control remote controlled drones and enter into competitions.
Max Bradshaw and Dason Connely code their four wheel robot.
