February is Career and Technical Education month
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - February is Career and Technical Education month in Idaho to raise awareness of CTE programs and the role they play in college and career success.
Downtown Idaho Falls is home to Idaho Falls School District 91's own CTE center. It is one of the few freestanding centers specifically designed for the program in the state.
"Our students come here 2 hours a day all year long," District 91 CTE Administrator Beverly Hott told Local News 8. "They finish the entire program in a year. They come out with college credits. Most of our students get jobs right out of these classes in our entire facility, and they all do internships as well."
The center provides opportunities in everything from; construction, agriculture, culinary arts, mechanical and auto engineering, to even areas like law enforcement and fire fighting with the help of cutting edge technology.
According to Hott, "the data shows that 95% of students that take career and technical education classes actually graduate and go on, whether that be college, the military, or a career in what they trained in. Versus only 75% of non cte students."
And it comes at no cost to the student thanks to Idaho's advanced opportunities program which provides every student, $4,125 to pay for dual credit college level courses in high school which means they can get a head start on their future career.
"It's definitely clarified kind of what I want to do with my career," EMT student Marina Renna said. "I've definitely seen that I really enjoy emergency medicine and I might want to continue that further. We're just kind of learning new tricks that are coming out with time. And I think that's really cool because we're kind of seeing real time how medicine is changing as we are learning it."
Meanwhile, other students use the program to explore potential career paths.
"I really don't know, I think there's so many options to go in this career paths or any others," auto engineering student Allie Taylor told Local News 8. "But this one really does give me the opportunity to go into any one I like."
