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BY JENNA STEVENS Ag in the Classroom Coordinator Clinton County Farm Bureau EASTERN IOWA FARMER Career, technical education opportunities abound for high school students With graduation season fast approaching for area students, questions about their next steps seem inevitable. “Where are you headed?” or “Are you doing a four-year or a two-year degree?” or “Not going to college, do you already have a job lined up?” These are just a few of the standard questions we ask soon-to-be graduates. Luckily this generation has more options than ever available to them to help answer these questions. One that is receiving a big boost in Iowa is Career and Technical Education programs. Career and Technical Education, or CTE as it is called in schools, is happening across the state with explicit instruction available in a variety of fields. The Iowa Department of Education says its goal is to have 70 percent of all Iowans in the workforce educated with some type of additional training by 2025. Some of the classes that fall into the realm of CTEs include agriculture, welding, woods, mechanics, family and consumer science, culinary arts, and even early childhood education. Each of these courses offers students the chance to engage in hands-on learning and develop skills that could potentially turn into a career. While schools have been offering hands-on learning classes for years, CTEs place an added emphasis on student engagement and technical development that targets the acquisition of certificates or AA degrees. For example, instead of just taking a welding class or two, students can be working on their welding certificates, making them employable almost immediately after high school. Work-based learning programs are also on the rise, giving students the chance to experience a job before they commit to it post-graduation. Area schools have work-based learning coordinators who help match kids with local business partnerships in the surrounding communities. Students then spend part of their school day on the job working for a business, learning the job, and interacting with co-workers and supervisors. A great example of this comes from Northeast High School where one former student worked for an area electrical company. He enjoyed it so much that he went on to pursue his education at NICC at Calmar where he earned his industrial electricians’ certificate. After college, he landed a full-time job at Clyser and continued training to earn his Journeyman’s Certification. His time spent in a work-based learning environment gave him basic skills and experience in a field that allowed him to figure out that he truly enjoyed this career path. For those who do not have time to do a work-based learning program or who may not be old enough for one, they can get involved in a CTSO, which stands for Career and Technical Student Organizations. This covers groups like FFA and FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America); it also extends to programs like SkillsUSA, which is a trade organization. Students involved in SkillsUSA compete in contests, not unlike their FFA counterparts, but those contests include things like cabinetmaking, masonry, plumbing, and more. Students doing well in these areas often go on to be recruited by the program sponsors, guaranteeing them a chance at future employment. The great thing about CTSOs is that the state department is working with schools to make them co-curricular rather than just extra-curricular, meaning students will be exposed to these programs right in the classroom instead of having to seek out these opportunities on their own. This is already being done in some spaces. For example, in the ag program at Central DeWitt, students in the freshman AFNR (Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources) class receive instruction about FFA during their first semester of enrollment and start working on their own Supervised Agricultural Experience projects or SAEs. Iowa is leading the way when it comes to giving students exposure to opportunities outside of the traditional classroom setting, and they have plans to do even more in the future. Learning is no longer just a pen and a notebook, it is building or renovating homes, running a food truck business, and operating equipment and computer systems inside local companies. However the students in this graduating class choose to answer questions about their futures, parents can be assured that they have more exposure to career and technical education pathways than ever before and that area school districts will continue to build on these programs in the coming years. n eifarmer.com SPRING 2024 | EASTERN IOWA FARMER 39
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