Merrimack Valley High School senior Forest Green is taking five on-campus auto tech classes at Manchester Community College (MCC), has an entry level job at E&W Auto Repair in Loudon and is completing his senior project at MVHS. He plans to own an auto specialty repair shop.
Pembroke Academy senior Codie Gardner earned his EMT license through the Barnstead Fire Department this fall, is finishing up classes at PA and currently is taking an intensive Firefighter I class at the State Fire Academy through his affiliation with the Allenstown Fire Department. He plans to be a cardiologist.
Their common link is CRTC+, a program created to help students build on their positive Career and Technical Education (CTE) experience to design a customized, hybrid senior year that will give them a head start on their college and career ambitions.
CRTC (Concord Regional Technical Center) is one of 27 New Hampshire CTE centers that serve 9,500 high school students statewide (for perspective, 14,000 New Hampshire students graduate high school annually). The almost 700 students who choose to attend CRTC connect to their chosen career pathways through rigorous and relevant classroom learning, post-secondary alignment and exposure to all aspects of industry.
Our teachers, most of whom came from industry, guide their students to identify their college and career goals, and develop, and start, a workable plan that will get them there. These plans are developed through a mix of purposeful activities beyond the curriculum: industry tours, meetings with career professionals, college visits and presentations, interviewing and networking exercises, work-based learning and 1:1 student conferences.
This kind of targeted education is a huge advantage to seniors who face big life decisions. In contrast, for far too many the transition from high school to whatever comes next is a stumble, and this impact ripples not only within their lives but also throughout the state’s economy. The opportunity of a senior year with focus is lost far too often.
We should seek to better understand these new career pathway opportunities as not an alternative to four-year college but as a more strategic, affordable pathway toward reaching life goals. New recognition models like the Drive to 65 Career-Ready Credential and the N.H. Scholars Career Pathways will create inspiring stories to help us better visualize these new roads.
The good news is that we have a number of large-scale high school efforts to support this approach in place. The Community College System of New Hampshire’s Early College and Running Start programs facilitated almost 11,000 high school college course registrations in 2018-19 at a bargain price ($150 per class) or for free via the governor’s STEM scholarship program. Also Extended Learning Opportunities (ELOs) available in most every New Hampshire high school allows students to earn credits for student-driven learning acquired outside traditional structures. The grassroots N.H. ELO Network (NH ELON) has grown this competency-driven system to national recognition.
Lastly, a new approach enthusiastically endorsed by Gov. Chris Sununu is Career Academies; similar to CRTC+, this model is a mix of high school education, college, industry experiences and work. Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut is now promoting a charter school version of New Hampshire career academies.
While the public charter school will provide students with educational choice, it also will cost the state almost twice ($8,000) what it does for the typical student. CRTC+ and other similar versions allow students to scale the scope and intensity of their experience (two college classes could be a big endeavor), as well as fully remain in their high school where they can keep connections to their peers, supporters and all activities traditionally associated with senior year. Based on my listening, retaining their home community is critical for most students.
New Hampshire needs to do much more coordination and collaboration to facilitate this new era. Other states are engaged in similar efforts with very public calls for systemic change. Michigan, for example, ambitiously calls their version the Marshall Plan for Talent.
Regardless of the specific methods and model, the availability of these options has begun to invigorate a new generation of high school students.
The students in our CRTC+ program chose early on in high school to challenge themselves to take on an intense, career-focused education, a pathway that has opened the door for them to use their senior year to springboard.
Forest and Codie started their CRTC engagement with an interest, and now they are well on their way to achieving so much more by participating in a model that is available to all Concord area high school students and one I’d love to see more statewide students take advantage of.
(Steve Rothenberg has been the CTE director of the Concord Regional Technical Center since 2008. He is a trustee with the NH-CTE Administrators Association, Community College System of New Hampshire and the Mayhew Program.)