CTE programs prepare students for work
Today’s classes more academically robust
It all started because Anna Wilson knew how to work on cars when she was in high school.
“I needed electives in my junior year of high school,” Wilson said, “and my dad said ‘don’t take automotive … you already know how to do that.’” So welding it was.
After completing her welding and fire science education at San Juan College in Farmington and working in the oil and gas industry and for the U.S. Forest Service as a seasonal firefighter, Wilson found she had a passion for teaching.
In the past five years, Wilson has been active in not only teaching welding as a career path for Farmington High School students but has made an impression on people on the state level who are involved with Career and Technical Education.
Career and Technical Education — CTE — is designed to prepare students for work, according to Korth Ellsworth, Secondary Curriculum director of Farmington Public Schools.
These classes give students a chance to get a head start on preparing for college and careers with dual-credit courses. In some areas, students can earn certificates from the hands-on training.
“Anna is a rock star,” Ellsworth said. “She is not only a good teacher but is a great role model.”
Wilson said she had teachers when she was just learning to weld who pointed out that she had a natural knack and encouraged her along that career path. After working in the male-dominated field for several years she is now heavily involved in promoting welding to women as a career.
One of the programs she has been working on is called “Diva-Tech,” which brings eighth-grade girls into the shop for an evening where they learn a bit of shop safety and get some hands-on experience with the equipment in an all-girl environment.
“We talk about being a woman in a non-traditional field and the different types of careers that use welding,” she said.
Many of the welding jobs in the Four Corners area are in the oil and gas fields, Ellsworth said, and there is a high demand for skilled workers.
But Wilson said she would like to see education on using welding in making fine art as well. She also teaches dual-credit welding classes in partnership with San Juan College and is working to get welding classes offered as evening classes for those who can’t attend during the traditional school day.
Welding is just a part of a robust CTE program that has made Farmington schools a standout in New Mexico.
“Overall there has been more and more concern to get students to stay in school,” Ellsworth said. “Not that long ago, there was such a focus on college prep to the exclusion of those who were on career paths that didn’t necessarily need a four-year degree.”
In the past, CTE would have been referred to as “vocational education.” But it is now very different from the “shop class” many remember.
Today’s CTE programs, Ellsworth said, allow students to explore options for their future — inside and outside the classroom.
Many programs in the state, like Farmington, are seen as roads to additional study after high school.
They are more academically rigorous than those of a previous generation, include dual-credit from community colleges and can result in students earning skill certificates that will place them in jobs or advance them to other post-secondary education.
Another benefit is that a higher percentage of students enrolled in Farmington’s CTE programs finish high school.
“It’s something around 80 percent,” Ellsworth said. The state average is about 71 percent.
Welding is only one of the subjects offered through CTE in Farmington.
Ellsworth said the district not only offers traditional vocational courses in auto repair, culinary arts, business and marketing, health occupations and agriculture, it is expanding into digital arts, and information technology.
And he said the support and assistance from the New Mexico Public Education Department as well as the Carl Perkins Grants — a principal source of federal funding for the improvement of secondary and post-secondary career and technical programs across the nation — has helped a lot.
“We are always exploring ideas about what vocational education looks like,” he said. “It’s how we better serve our students and community.”