ABOVE: Martin County West freshmen Kane Wohlhuter and Gavin Schoen practice arc and wire feed welding in their Exploring Agriculture class. Submitted photo.

MARTIN COUNTY – Alongside more traditional education, like math, science and history, career and technical education (CTE) is providing youth in Martin County with new pathways and advantages.

For Granada-Huntley-East Chain (GHEC), Mackenzie Wagelie and Gina Huhnerkoch teach the CTE offerings.

“We have a work-based learning class that is new to our school for this year,” Wagelie said. “I have vet science, large animals, small animal science, food science, advanced food science, meat science, farm to table and an Ag business class.”

“I teach engines, woodworking, welding one and two, so advanced welding class,” Huhnerkoch said. “We’ll be teaching advanced woodworking class as well as Ag manufacturing, and then a STEAM class, which encompasses all sorts of technologies. In the future, we will be offering a plant science class.”

In addition to these offered classes, Principal Andy Walden said there is a streamlined career education opportunity for all students.

“MCIS, it’s a career exploration curriculum where students establish or identify what interests they have and how that would match up to the careers they want to pursue,” he said.

GHEC recently passed a referendum which will allow for more CTE space and better equipment. Wagelie said this will help students be ready for what current working conditions are like in the technical fields.

“We have small spaces right now, but with this building bond, we’re able to get technology up to date and industry standard,” she said. “That will prepare our kids for the workforce, whether it be in the trades, as a vet tech or as a food scientist. We will have many different technologies and tools that those kids can prepare themselves in our classroom.”

In her time at GHEC, Wagelie said the offerings have grown substantially to the point where GHEC could bring in a second CTE teacher. Huhnerkoch said the word is out at GHEC about what CTE can offer.

“Students have become way more involved in the shop area,” she said. “Some of my classes are a little smaller, but now that word of mouth is going around, I’m getting a lot more kids taking my classes. I have a couple of classes next semester that are completely full. My welding classes have gotten really popular to the point where I have to offer a couple of welding classes a semester.”

ABOVE: Granada-Huntley-East Chain student Aubrey Benoit place a tray of candies into a freeze dry machine for one of their CTE classes. Submitted photo.

Martin County West (MCW) offers 25 classes across Ag business, animal science, plant systems, natural resources, food science and Ag mechanics. The last of these has the most classes, with eight. Two of them are advanced classes that require prerequisites be completed.

MCW Teacher Taber Sheldrup said their classes are offered to directly align with careers and trades important to the area.

“We try to cater to that as a separate pathway other than college, because that is just as important,” he said. “I teach things like welding. We even have an advanced welding class for kids who want to keep going on that. It’s a pathway for them; they could see themselves doing it in the future for work. We do electrical and plumbing. We even do some construction, where we build sheds for community members.

While the CTE portion has held solid and consistent for the last 10 years, MCW Teacher Stephanie Wohlhuter said MCW has grown quite a bit since she started 20 years ago.

“We went from one instructor to at one time we had three in the ag education department and industrial technology,” she said. “It’s definitely grown in the course of my career here. I would say that’s mostly because there’s been an emphasis on high skill trades and career opportunities available to kids.”

By offering these classes to MCW students, Wohlhuter said it offers another component for kids looking at their future.

“We have a lot of kids that take PSEO college classes, but they don’t really know what they want to do yet,” she said. “Taking electives allows kids to find career paths they like or don’t like, and it also allows them to discover hobbies that might be lifelong interests.”

In her 20 years of experience, Wohlhuter said she has seen many students discover their passions through MCW CTE courses and use that to form careers. While this is Sheldrup’s first year teaching at MCW, it is because of CTE classes that he is teaching.

“I took as many of these elective classes as I could in high school,” he said. “I heavily considered going into the trades, but I also wanted to go to college. I decided instead of doing it myself, I wanted to share my interests with other people and inspire them to do it.”

At Fairmont High School, Principal Chad Brusky said they currently offer a wide range of CTE courses.

“Textiles, clothing, culinary, welding, automotive, small engines,” he said. “Our welding program has four levels of welding, including a [college-level course]. We have intro to HVAC, principles of HVAC, woodworking courses and the building trades course. We have a principles of flight class, which is an intro to aviation. Students are able to get their student’s license card by completing ground school if they pass the written test through the program.”

In all, the school has eight CTE tracks: automotive, welding, culinary, ag, construction, trades, aeronautics and child development. They aren’t just face-level classes either. Brusky said nearly all of these tracks have levels of depth that can be explored by students.

“It’s not just an exploratory to learn how to change oil,” he said. “Our intro to auto is preparing kids for advanced auto. Our instructors do a great job in many of these to reach kids where they’re at. If they want to go into auto body, we have body projects. If they want to go into engine systems, they get a chance to work on engines. It’s very robust programming.”

This isn’t new for Fairmont either, as Superintendent Andy Traetow said CTE education goes back decades in their current high school building.

“When this building was built, our career and technical education wing of the building served students from throughout the county,” he said. “It was a career technical education center that had its own scope and operated as a school within a school in and of itself. Over the last two decades, Fairmont Area Schools has emphasized and prioritized bringing that exposure to the skilled trades back to the area.”

From this and other previous decisions, Traetow said they are able to provide what they do now because of the groundwork laid in the past.

“It’s important to acknowledge the great work of the administration and school board members that went before us,” he said. “Not only those that are here now, but those that contributed to the vision of providing the number of opportunities we do for our students.”