About this series
This is the first in a series of stories about Hamilton High School’s Career Tech Education programs and students in honor of Career Tech Education Month. Next week, we’ll look at the NJROTC program and how it prepares students for military service.
HAMILTON — Demand for enrollment in Hamilton High School’s Career Tech Ed department is so competitive that students have to go through a stringent application process.
There are grade point average and attendance requirements. Some of the eight programs require essays and interviews to get in.
And according to Kent Bryson, assistant principal for CTE, his desire to bring nontraditional students into the various programs might raise the stakes a little more.
In this context, “nontraditional” is mostly a gender thing — putting girls into automotive, boys into nursing.
“It’s going to be a tremendous growth area for us,” Bryson said. “We’re really pulling for nontraditional students because the careers in those programs are going to grow that way.”
This is the time of year, he said, when he starts planting the seeds for a fall harvest, and he’s hoping to get a bumper crop next school year.
“We only have two girls in information technology now,” Bryson said. “So we recently took 31 girls from the Freshman School to an IT program, and 16 of them came to a follow-up lunch where we gave them more information. I was really expecting six or eight, so I was just beside myself.
“If we get four of them into the program, we’ve doubled our numbers.”
At present, the health care program has 69 applicants for the 2011-12 school year, nine of them male. In addition to the grade and attendance requirements, students have to pass muster on an interview with Bryson and instructor Karen Stewart because part of their experience is working outside the school at hospitals and nursing homes.
“We don’t take kids who can’t work as a team or be trusted with working outside the building,” Stewart said.
The downside to aggressive recruiting, however, is that some students won’t be able to make the cut.
“Because of our space and limitations in equipment and so forth, if we over-recruit — which we do by four or five students — we have students slotted to fill positions if someone decides to withdraw or moves out of the district,” Bryson said. “But that means we’re going to have kids who want to get in, but can’t.”
If students get to know how competitive the programs are, however, they may start working harder in earlier grades so that they can prepare themselves earlier, he said.
Diploma, college a first for students’ families
There was a time when high school career programs focused on getting students ready to go into the workplace.
But many of the programs at Hamilton High’s Career Tech Ed prepare students for both a job and college.
Some programs feature articulation agreements with nearby colleges that let students earn college credit while still in high school. Some agreements are generous enough that the student can enter college as a sophomore, according to CTE principal Kent Bryson.
“I think every kid ought to go to college, but if they’re not able, then we want to prepare them for the workplace by leaving here with something in hand,” he said, “a set of skills and maybe even certification or a license.”
The difference is that many Career Tech Ed students will be the first in their families to go to college.
Kevin Glenn, a junior in the health care program, hopes to be the first in his family to graduate high school.
The program will enable Glenn to get a nursing aide certification before he finishes high school and 14 college credits to give him a head start on his ultimate career goal of becoming a hospital administrator.
He said being the only male in the program hasn’t been a hindrance.
“It doesn’t make a difference to me,” he said. “Just because it’s mostly a female program in a mostly female field, I would encourage more males to come in. “Some of my friends have (made wisecracks), but overall, I’ll be getting a better education than them, so let them make fun of me.”
Instructor Karen Stewart said the program has had as many as four males in it.
“We present it to everyone and let students know the opportunities out there,” she said. “But we’re seeing more and more males in the profession. I think part of it is the stability. There are jobs out there in health care and there always will be.”
And there will always be a need for people to work on cars, which is what inspired Amanda Whitlock, the only female to enroll in the automotive program.
“I grew up mainly around guys,” she said. “Instead of Barbie dolls, I played with Hot Wheels and dinosaurs.”
Whitlock said she liked to hand her grandfather his tools when he worked on cars.
“It doesn’t really matter to me to be the only girl here,” she said. “The hard part is getting a job in the field because a lot of guys don’t think that females should be working on cars.”
She has her sight set on the automotive school at the University of Northwestern Ohio in Lima, where she will take eight college credits into her freshman year. She, too, will be a first-generation college student.
So will Jennifer Davis, one of two girls in the carpentry program, which she enrolled in because she likes making things with her hands.
“If somebody wanted to throw a bike away, I’d be the one to put it back together,” she said.
By the time Davis graduates from high school, she’ll be certified in forklift and bobcat operation and will have a three-year OSHA license. Instructor Tim Carpenter said he expects the same out of his female students as his males.
“I don’t try to change anything for them,” he said. “I don’t want to make it seem like I’m making it easier for them. There’s nothing here a female can’t do.”
Carpenter noted that his first female graduate, Erin Gingrich, went on to Lincoln Technical Institute and has become the first female supervisor for the Fastenal Co.
“My hope is that, with all the DIY shows on television now, that more females will be interested,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
About the Author