February is Career and Technical Education Month and I wanted to take some time to let our stakeholders know about the many opportunities for Career Education in Poplar Bluff Schools.
The Poplar Bluff R-I school system has two different methods of providing Career Education to students.
The first method is by directly offering programs to students on an hourly basis on the Poplar Bluff High School Campus. These programs consist of Agriculture Education, Business Education, Marketing Education, and Family and Consumer Sciences.
Classes for our programs range from Web Design, Banking in the Business Area or under Agriculture, Ag Mechanics, Floriculture, and Animal Science. Marketing covers an Introduction to Marketing and provides students with opportunities to work for credits, whereas Family and Consumer Sciences covers Basic Foods, Nutrition and Wellness, Child Development, and Fashion Design.
These courses are just a taste of the numerous offerings in the student catalog for PBHS students.
The second way students can take part in career education during high school is at the Technical Career Center.
Effective the coming school year, the Poplar Bluff Technical Career Center will be serving 10 sending schools (Poplar Bluff - Host District, East Carter, Greenville, Dexter, Puxico, Southern Reynolds, Twin Rivers, Westwood Baptist Academy, Van Buren, and Zalma).
These 10 schools cost-share and send their students to Poplar Bluff as part of a statewide system that helps offset the cost of career education. Not every school, especially small rural schools, can afford to offer career education. This method allows for every public and now private school in the state to offer more opportunities for their students.
At PBTCC, we currently offer our high school students the following programs: Auto Service Technology, Auto Collision Repair, Building Trades, Computer Graphics & Print Technology, Computer Maintenance Technology, Cosmetology (which now includes High School Esthetics and High School Barbering), Culinary Arts (ProStart), Health Occupations, Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (HVACR), Project Lead The Way - Computer Science, and Welding.
With the exception of Health Occupations and Project Lead The Way-Computer Science, and High School Barbering, all other programs are offered to adults who are seeking additional career training.
The career programs offered make an impact in the local economy. For example, this past year’s data shows 79% of PBHS CTE students are employed in some capacity or are attending further training/college-according to our six-month follow-up. In addition, 85% of PBTCC students are placed using similar parameters.
Those percentages translate into 326 students from our respective communities who are now working toward their career goals and have a head start on their peers, as a result.
I cannot stress enough that the real-world scenarios and experiences provided through career training and career education could not be possible without a long list of supports and supporters.
It takes a cost-sharing approach and superintendents and their boards of education at local schools, to invest in career education. It takes a host district like Poplar Bluff that sees the value in CTE and is willing to take the responsibility, so that not only our community benefits, but also all of our partner communities benefit by having a higher-skilled workforce.
Our programs would suffer enormously if not for the input and ideas of local industries. All of our programs have standing advisory committees to help ensure relevant curriculum is always being provided. In fact, we are always looking for industry partners and advisory committee members.
If you would like to be a partner of PBHS or PBTCC and lend your expertise, feel free to contact me, Charles Kinsey, director, at 573-785-2248. We would love to discuss ways you can become involved in the shaping of future generations of the industry.
Charles Kinsey is the director of the Poplar Bluff Technical Career Center.