Pea Ridge leads the way in quality career programs

FARMINGTON — Educators put what they learned from trips to career-focused schools around the country into a set of guidelines for quality career programs.

The guidelines, titled “Career and Tech Frameworks/Quality Indicators,” were approved by superintendents at the May monthly Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative Center directors’ meeting.

Superintendents and administrators from Northwest Arkansas visited the four career centers since December, the last three with money from a nearly $80,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation. The centers were Francis Tuttle Technology Center in Oklahoma City, the Center for Advanced Research and Technology in Clovis, Calif., Kent Career Center in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Aviation High School in Long Island, N.Y.

The grant required the group to incorporate lessons learned from the trip into a set of guidelines for developing career and technical education programs, Cooperative Director Charles Cudney said.

Bentonville Superintendent Michael Poore and Pea Ridge Superintendent Rick Neal gave a presentation during the May 13 meeting of the State Board of Education in Little Rock on what northwest Arkansas is doing to promote career and technical education, said Cudney, who also will attend. The presentation will include discussion on the new guidelines.

Several area school districts, especially in western Benton County, are interested in developing a regional center. That idea involves a bigger conversation about funding, including from the state, Cudney said.

“This puts us in a position to be organized in those requests,” Cundey said. “Local districts are trying to do what they can in order to promote career and technical education.”

The guidelines also are available for school districts to consider when expanding or adding career and technical education programs, Cudney said.

The focus of a quality career and technical education program should be on empowering high school students to pursue a career or further their education and skills after graduation, according to the guidelines.

Programs should involve every student in intensive career orientation, according to the document. They must be flexible, relevant programs schools can implement quickly. Programs should integrate academics with teaching about careers. Quality programs have agreements with colleges and universities across the state to give high school students credit for college-level work done through those programs.

The programs also should provide students with certifications recognized by business and industry.

In Arkansas, concurrent credit courses — courses that count for high school and college credit — are a hot topic, with state officials discussing the pros and cons of keeping concurrent credit programs, said Cheryl Pickering, a career and technical education specialist at the cooperative. California and Oklahoma, where two centers are located, have agreements in place for concurrent credit courses to be accepted in all post-high school state institutions.

“We just don’t want to lose this in Arkansas,” Pickering said.

The opening of the district’s conversion charter Pea Ridge Manufacturing and Business Academy is one example of the effort around developing quality programs that link to college and careers, Pea Ridge Superintendent Rick Neal said.

“There’s more opportunities and options for kids,” Neal said. “It all ties together.”