CTE – Education at Work, Part 4: The student experience

Editors note: As students and teachers return to school, The Chronicle takes a deeper look at Career and Technical Education in Springfield, Cottage Grove, Pleasant Hill, and Creswell. This is part 4 of 4 of the series. Check this out if you missed part 1,  part 2, or part 3. A companion piece for this week’s edition is also posted here. This series was made possible in part by donations to The Chronicle Foundation and the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism (FORJ).

A recent Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation study found that Gen-Z students are generally less interested in their public education — especially if they are not pursuing a college degree. 

That study showed that, between 2023 and 2024, the percent of students that agreed that they had learned something interesting at school in the last seven days decreased by 10%. 

There is also a significant difference between students’ responses when they are interested in pursuing a bachelor’s degree versus when they are not. 

 Travis Vaughn (left), a junior, and Hayes Valley, a senior at Cottage Grove High School hang out in the broadcasting room — a unique feature in CGHS’s digital media CTE program.  TATUM STUART / CHRONICLE PHOTO

The most notable difference is when students report if they are motivated to get good grades; 79% of students interested in pursuing a bachelor’s degree say that they are, but only 57% of students uninterested in pursuing a degree say that they are. 

According to some local students, CTE classes are changing how they view their high school experience. 

COLLEGE-BOUND

“CTE definitely made high school more enjoyable,” said Kaseylee Miller, a Cottage Grove High School (CGHS) senior. 

Miller has been involved in the Early Childhood Education (ECE) CTE classes since her freshman year and has already completed an internship with a local daycare. 

CGHS’s daycare on campus allows ECE students to have supervised experiences working in childcare. 

“I have just always loved being around kids,” Miller said in a gentle voice with a baby in her arms and a toddler near her feet. Her goal is to attend Linfield University to get a teaching license and continue to work in early childhood education. 

Students like Miller and Savannah White, a 2024 Pleasant Hill High School (PHHS) graduate, used their CTE opportunities to find what degree they wanted to pursue.

“I did stuff like horticulture and agriculture sales, which was my favorite,” White said while showing off the enormous PHHS on-campus greenhouse.

At PHHS, White was part of the FFA chapter, which allowed her to put her agriculture knowledge into practice. She said she took agriculture business management for four years and managed the on-campus greenhouse. These experiences allowed her to serve her community.  She also earned scholarships covering her first year at Oregon State University as she pursues the Forestry Engineering program. 

“That’s where I found the most joy; it was giving back to my community for all they had given us,” White said as she reflected on her favorite experiences in the CTE programs. 

In the other CTE program at PHHS, Maddy Gunn prepared for her nursing degree by receiving her Emergency Medical Response (EMR) certification. 

The EMR class was a partnership between the Pleasant Hill Goshen Fire Department (PHGFD) and PHHS’s Health Science teacher and former paramedic Christy Vough. While Vough taught her students anatomy and curriculum in the classroom, the fire department members would come out to the school and help the students perform their new skills. Gunn explained that she was able to grow a lot in that class. 

“For me with the CTE class that Mrs. Vough taught, it was all about my mindset, because I struggle with being nervous and having anxiety,” she said. 

She went on to say that there were times she didn’t know if she could go in front of her class and perform a memorized emergency response task. 

Gunn said that although she did fail at times, support from her teacher and her positive mindset made her feel safe. She said she struggled with the idea of guilt if she made mistakes, but instead she was encouraged by her teacher to try again.

“Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, because it will happen,” Gunn said as a word of advice to future CTE students. 

STAYING LOCAL

In an unexpected occurrence, Sam McElwain, Springfield High School assistant automotive teacher, can see his community impact and familiar faces. 

McElwain said he needed some garage doors installed for his home, and to his surprise the people who came to do it had been his former students. 

“And they remembered me,” he said, chuckling. 

McElwain has been at SHS for 24 years and said he originally started to try and make a positive impact in students’ lives. He has accomplished that by providing a classroom where students can learn skills they are interested in, and as a result are now the next generation of the local workforce. 

Scene from Springfield High’s auto shop.  TATUM STUART/ CHRONICLE PHOTO

Community pride and local industry excitement help fuel this county’s workforce, by replenishing schools and industries with Lane County natives. 

As Chris Wells, acting interim principal at Cottage Grove High School, walks his school halls, he can run into almost a dozen CGHS graduates who decided to become teachers, many of them CTE teachers at their former high school. 

“Gone are the days of  …  [when] we thought we would get every kid to college,” Wells said. He explained that students choosing career paths that do not require college and instead get additional training in trades or other areas “can come out and start making [his] wages in the next four or five years,” he said as he laughed.

Lane County has also extended its CTE initiative outside the public school sphere by helping students develop skills at Connected Lane County’s Spark at Booth-Kelly,  a youth innovation space providing youth with out-of-school education and training in STEM fields in Springfield.

Spark at Booth-Kelly facility ribbon cutting ceremony in September 2023. From left: CLC agency member Kyler Johnson, CLC agency member Parker Vracy, CLC agency member Quentin Hawkins, CLC agency member Kobe Edwards, CLC agency member Cassy Martinez, CLC executive director Heidi Larwick, Springfield mayor Sean Van Gordon, Springfield Public Schools superintendent Todd Hamilton, Lane Community College associate vice president for career technical education and workforce development Grant Matthews, and Springfield Chamber president Vonnie Mikkelsen. BOB WILLIAMS / CHRONICLE PHOTO

The Spark program allows students to try hands-on learning such as screen printing or laser engraving in afterschool programs and drop-ins. 

Justin Thibedeau, Associate Director & Program Manager of Spark, said that through the different programs at CLC, they are serving over 3,000 youth a year. 

Thibedeau describes the organization as a “perfect compliment” to CTE programs in school because CLC helps connect students with industry partners and allows them to try out areas of interest before they enroll in a class. 

Spark was impactful for Parker Bracy, a Willamette High School graduate, and he eventually returned to work there and served students in the community. 

Bracy was a senior in high school and a car care class at Willamette when he noticed the embroidery machines and laser cutters in the classroom. Since he was a senior and finishing the last leg of high school, he asked his car care teacher for guidance on using those machines in his spare periods. 

This got Bracy hooked on learning how to use technical machines and prompted him to do the invention lab program at Spark. Bracy said he loved his experience and continued to stay involved in Spark until eventually he was offered a full-time position. 

“The main thing I’m really excited about working here is introducing things like .. sewing, laser cutting and all these random things that students like me would never have seen before and otherwise missed out,” Bracy said. 

His focus lies in apparel and design and he developed his own clothing brand called, “honyx,” with his experiences at Spark. 

As a Black, Indigenous, and Person of Color (BIPOC), Bracy said he also enjoys his position because it allows students to see a BIPOC person in the STEM field. 

“I want to kind of open the doors and show that, like, this should be a very diverse field, like getting ideas from everyone makes  the experience much better,” he said. 

Bracy credits Connected Lane County for his success after high school, which is why he chose to stay local for the time being and help mentor students that may need the program as much as he did. 

CROSSING THE FINISH LINE

While CTE classes are preparing students for post high school experience, many teachers and students are saying that these are the classes keeping them in school and eventually getting to graduation. 

Cortez Price takes a break from practicing his welding in Thurston High Schools metals class BOB WILLIAMS / CHRONICLE PHOTO

Scott Lierman, a 2024 Kalapuya High School (KHS) grad, went from dropping out to earning a scholarship for his trades career. 

“I didn’t think I was going to graduate because I jumped around from high school to high school,” Lierman said as he recounted his experiences. Lierman said he had dropped out his sophomore year and then returned, behind on credits, his junior year. 

While there, Lierman was one of three students selected to participate in a paid summer crew to help build the new woodshop at his high school.

Once he started building items, he realized that he could see a future in this career and became connected with The Hope Factory where he helped build shelters for families displaced due to wildfires. 

This experience led him to taking a construction course at Lane Community College and with the help of his principal, Lierman was awarded a scholarship from The Eugene Builders Exchange right after he graduated. 

Now Lierman is one of Chambers Construction’s carpenter apprentices, and he hopes to work his way into becoming a general contractor.

Members of Chambers Construction apprenticeship program work on a project. TATUM STUART / CHRONICLE PHOTO

Lierman said the support from his high school, even without a full CTE program, was what helped him get on his career path, but he encourages students to ask for help no matter where they are at. 

“If you want to do online school or go to an alternative school, there’s no shame in that, or even getting your GED,” Lierman said as he explains that reaching any of those goals means asking for help. 

FUTURE-FOCUSED

Some students at Al Kennedy High School (AKHS) agree that asking for help and supportive teachers in CTE programs can open up a multitude of career opportunities. 

Leeland Whiterock, junior at Al Kennedy, spends the morning building in his agriculture manufacturing class. BOB WILLIAMS / THE CHRONICLE

Leland Whiterock, a junior at Al Kennedy, said that his CTE experiences allowed him to think more about what life after high school looks like. 

“I despised college, and I thought I was never going to try and do it, or I wasn’t going to do anything after high school,” Whiterock said. He became more interested in thinking about the future after being paid for summer crew construction classes at AKHS. He also enjoyed learning about forestry and is now interested in pursuing wildland firefighting.

His experiences have been so significant, that he said he has even considered going into teaching. 

“Going to AKHS and seeing how these teachers have affected me, how inspired I became because of them, helped me to realize I can make a positive change in anybody’s life if I just apply myself,” he said. 

Whiterock said he hasn’t decided what comes after high school, but said his options have broadened significantly since attending Al Kennedy. 

“Now I kind of feel like college is important and I need to take the appropriate steps to at least be able to make that decision if I want to,” Whiterock said. “If I make the decision [to not attend college], it’s not because I can’t, but because I don’t want to.”

From top left: Shay Miller at Al Kennedy drills together part of a planters box. … Samantha Hernandez and Cater Boyer, juniors at CGHS, shows off his potato soup in his culinary CTE class. … Students at Pleasant Hill High School checks out a welding machine. … Savannah White, a 2024 Pleasant Hill High School CTE graduate … and a student at Thurston working on some DIY Rice Krispies Treats in her culinary class.  BOB WILLIAMS / CHRONICLE PHOTOS