Roadshow drives into town with CTE options

SANDPOINT — Goggles on and paint sprayer in hand, Idaho’s superintendent of public instruction Sherri Ybarra began to spread the red paint across the car’s exterior in a slow, controlled manner.

This was only a virtual painting experience, of course, during her visit to Sandpoint High School on Friday. Ybarra was invited to the school for an interview by Emi Lynch, editor-in-chief for the Cedar Post, and it happened to be the same day the North Idaho College brought the fourth annual CTE Roadshow to SHS.

“I had the opportunity to visit with students, do an interview and see what they are interested in, and then visit the CTE fair,” Ybarra told the Daily Bee.

CTE is an acronym for career-technical education, which Ybarra said used to be called vocational-technical education or vo-tech. If she were to repeat Gov. Brad Little in regards to CTE programs, she said, “That is how you keep kids in Idaho.” There is a huge concern, she said, surrounding kids leaving the state and how to keep them here — CTE is the answer.

“It is connecting our kids to business and industry and careers … the other part of that is, we are seeing across the state that kids that are participating in these career-technical education programs are staying in school, they are engaged, they are connecting themselves to great jobs — and 96 percent of kids who participate in CTE programs graduate from high school,” Ybarra said.

Ybarra said one of the topics that has come up a lot lately, including during the interview with Lynch, is mastery-based education. Mastery is closely related to CTE as well, she said, as it is about flexibility in education, helping kids find their path, connecting them to college or careers and meeting them “where they are at” to help them be successful.

Mastery-based education is not something that can be pulled off of a shelf and handed to the kids, Ybarra said, as it is a more personalized learning system where students demonstrate progress by mastery of content, not by seat time or grade level. While mastery may not be for everyone, it has been highly successful at Clark Fork High School, which began experimenting with it in 2014. Idaho lawmakers approved the model in 2015 and the initial cohort of participants was selected, including CFHS, forming the Idaho Mastery Education Network as a mastery incubator.

Also like CTE, mastery is not a new idea as it used to be known as project- or competency-based learning, she said, again noting that it is about meeting kids “where they are at.”

“It’s that flexibility that kids are begging for in education,” she said. “They want to be part of the decision-making process. The kids coming to school these days, they know their rights, they are highly engaged in technology, they know what they want, and they want to be part of the learning process and help make decisions.”

As an example, Ybarra said she was asked a question by students about the state-mandated senior projects, and how they don’t want it to be a “box-checking event.” The students she spoke to want to be part of the decision-making process and do something that is meaningful, she said.

“So that is why there was a lot of discussion around that senior project and there were some changes made to make that senior project more flexible,” she said. “That is what we are searching for in education; that’s what the CTE program is all about, and what the mastery program is all about.”

As for the CTE Roadshow, the fourth annual event was one of the largest yet, with new program participants and students coming from as far away as Noxon, Mont.

Lake Pend Oreille School District Superintendent Tom Albertson said the idea behind the partnership with NIC was to make it a regional roadshow, not just for SHS.

“So when we can reach to the outlying schools, it just helps all students in the region,” Albertson said. “Then, a special treat is to be able to share it with Superintendent Ybarra from Boise.”

For the success of the roadshow, Albertson said he would like to thank SHS computer-aided design instructor Malia Meschko, who organizes the event each year.

Meschko said the roadshow is an opportunity for students and the community to engage with instructors to learn the kind of training necessary in any given career field. And the instructors “love” to share and educate people about their respective fields, she said.

Some of the NIC programs represented at this year’s event include aerospace technology, automotive technology, carpentry and construction, computer-aided design, communication and fine arts, accounting, graphic design and more.

Outside of NIC, Toni & Guy Hairdressing Academy was among the new participants at this year’s event. Joel Akins, director of admissions for the academy, said the roadshow is a great resource for students,

“Even if they are not going to maybe retain some of the information right now, it is something that down the road I feel like they are going to remember,” Akins said, adding that you can never start too early when it comes to outreach. “We are really excited to be a part of it … The school has been open for two years now, so we are still young but we love getting to interact with the high school students and middle school.”

The roadshow is helpful for students who don’t know what they want to do, to see what options are out there. It is also helpful for students like Lake Pend Oreille High School senior Zeya Martin, who aims to be an electrician and is starting in the NIC dual credit program next semester, and SHS sophomore Jake Oliver, who is looking at something along the lines of mechanical engineering. Both were walking around, talking to some of the representatives from programs in their fields of interest.

Being an annual event, some of the kids are exposed to the roadshow every year, and are often drawn back toward something that caught their interest in previous years as well, Meschko said.

“Some of them now have really delineated which career path they want to take, so now they have higher level questions and more of an interest in ‘What does this mean? What kind of career would I have? Where would I work?’” Meschko said. “So they are really looking at it seriously.”

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.