CTE department adds three new classes to curriculum

In light of the new changes being implemented at Manhattan High, students can expect to see certain adjustments made to the Career and Technical Education courses offered at the school meant to better improve skill sets by making more specific courses.

Part of those changes include specifying career pathways and adding more classes to the course book for the upcoming school year, which include new courses such as Teaching as a Career, Teaching Internship and Digital Media Project Management.

“We’re offering three new courses… two of those are in the education pathway, which we’ve never had before,” Debra Kidd, CTE Coordinator, said. “The education pathway has several courses that are in the family consumer science pathway, and then there are two courses we’re going to offer that are specifically for teaching.”

The changes come for a variety of reasons. Either the state causes a change to be made or the district chooses to change certain courses for the benefit of students at MHS. Either way, those changes are better helping students to learn and assisting in the selection of courses for the upcoming school years.

“For Career and Tech Ed, it’s almost always that the state requires something. That’s why I have several every year,” Kidd said. “For instance, in the AV communications area, they’re changing their pathway name at the State Department to Digital Media, and then we’re changing a couple of the course names based on relevance to the student.”

Students who have a distinct interest in those career pathways now have the ability to further explore those interests in high school. Being able to take those courses in high school can help students explore what they want to do in the future

“We’d always like for students to know a little bit about what they want to do after high school,” Kidd said. “If they’ve done their individual plan of study, then they kind of know what pathway they’re on to take courses in high school to help prepare them for possibly the same type of courses in college.”