Today’s job market demands a better-educated workforce than ever before, and jobs in this new economy require more complex knowledge and skills than jobs of the past. So if students want to be prepared for success after high school, they’re going to have to find a way to gain a competitive edge.
That has been the mantra of New Hampshire government, business and education officials over the last decade, and is the momentum behind the state’s Career Readiness Drive for 65 legislation (passed in 2019), which, in part, requires New Hampshire’s high schools to assess student career interest and place them on a pathway to a career credential (which could range from a diesel certificate to an medicine degree). New Hampshire has an economic competitiveness goal that 65% of our working-age population has a workforce-valued credential by 2025.
This emphasis has given rise to a number of alternative education options for high school students, as well as new challenges for families trying to navigate an unfamiliar landscape that includes Work-Based Learning (WBL), Extended Learning Opportunities (ELOs), badges, Career Academies and Learn Everywhere. Postsecondary education connections such as Early College and Running Start offer both high school and college credit at reduced or no cost (with the governor’s STEM scholarship).
While educators and families across the state are starting to get up to speed with these new requirements and opportunities, many still are struggling to gain a clear vision of how to strategically connect to and align these options in a way that truly engages students and gives them the agency to make big life decision they’ll need to make come senior year.
As director of the Concord Regional Technical Center, and a former president of the N.H. Career and Technical Administrators Association, I’ve been working to provide meaningful career connections for students for over 13 years. The state’s 27 Career and Technical Education centers, which serve more than 9,200 students, have deep experience harnessing many of these alternative education options in organized Career Pathway programs that match student interests and ambitions with real college and career opportunities.
CTE programs are designed in collaboration with college and industry partners to match education and practical experience with current local and national job market opportunities. These programs not only give students the chance to explore their interests, talents and ambitions, but also provide structured guidance to map out – and take action on – their college and career plans. Nationwide, 80% of CTE students say CTE classes helped them “know where they’re headed,” and 78% go on to college after graduation. Locally, 96% of our students in a recent center-wide survey say their CRTC program is relevant to their lives and future plans.
The CRTC has been connecting students to careers for over 40 years. Serving nine regional school districts (along with private, charter and homeschool students), the CRTC regularly engages 700 students in 11 Career Pathway programs designed to help them to actively plan and prepare for postsecondary success. CRTC students have interned and job-shadowed in auto repair shops, engineering firms, theaters and hospital operating rooms; they’ve networked with industry professionals, visited colleges and worksites, taken career-focused communications classes, and have been trained on job interview techniques.
Graphic design and creative media student Carter Haywood-Minery is on track to graduate this year with 30 college credits (much of it through NHTI). Seniors John Mazgelis (automotive technology) and Josh Blye (construction trades) are spending part of their senior year taking on-campus welding courses at Manchester Community College, and Olivia Anderson (emergency services) will earn 9 college credits and her Advanced EMT certification before she graduates this year.
“When I started high school I was scared about what I was going to do with my life, and now here I am applying to colleges, making connections and stepping into my future,” Olivia said in a recent interview. “Coming to the CRTC was the best decision I’ve made in high school.”
An increasing number of Concord region high school students are connecting to the CRTC. In the decade between 2009-2019, CRTC enrollment jumped 36% while regional high school enrollment dropped by 17%. CRTC students spend part of each school day working in program classrooms, shops and labs, or engaging in internship or job shadow opportunities. Program completers graduate with a true headstart on their college and career ambitions.
Heather Stiles is a 2015 graduate of the CRTC Health Science program, where she earned 8 college credits and her LNA license. She’s now on the front lines of the COVID crisis working as a registered nurse at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, Md.
“Participating in the CRTC Health Science program was without a doubt the most important career step I could possibly have taken in high school,” she recently wrote on the Friends of CRTC Facebook page. “I am now working as a registered nurse in one of the country’s highest-ranking hospitals. I simply would not be where I am today without the CRTC.”
The CRTC is currently recruiting 9th-, 10th-, and 11th-grade students for the 2021-22 school year. So it’s a good time for students and families to check us out. While all emerging and established career-connection programs have value on their own merits, the CRTC Career Pathway approach has a 40-year tradition of working with students to organize these opportunities in a way that targets their interests and career goals and provides them with a leg up on their postsecondary plans.
February is National CTE Month where CTE centers across the state are signing up students for next year’s classes. So now is a great time for students and families to connect to their local CTE center, review the options, and find a career-focused program that will help your student to graduate high school with that competitive edge we talked about earlier.
The Career Readiness Drive to 65 legislation pushed schools to provide all students with options to explore career connections, but the system on how to coordinate those experiences into a viable Career Pathway strategy is challenging. And while high schools are working hard to develop those alignments, Career and Technical Education centers have been doing this successfully for decades.
(Steve Rothenberg is director of the Concord Regional Technical Center, a past president of the N.H. Career and Technical Administrators Association, and a Community College System of N.H. trustee.)