Although the Russellville City Council adopted a resolution earlier this month recognizing February as “Career and Technical Education Month,” Russellville High School Career Tech Director Natalie Bendall's program continues to grow every month.
In fact, the biggest problem facing RHS' future with career tech is a lack of space. The CTE building has reached maximum capacity and with each of the system's four schools bursting at the seams, there is simply no room for the program to expand.
Russellville City Schools Superintendent Heath Grimes addressed the situation with CTE at a recent board meeting.
“We have a list of programs we'd like to offer but we cannot because we're so limited on space. That is definitely something we need to address,” Grimes said. “We don't have a single space to put another teacher into or to expand this program at all.”
Bendall, who serves as RHS Assistant Principal and CTE Director, said her program offers 10 business and industry certified programs in eight career clusters at Russellville High School and two more at Russellville Middle School.
Russellville's CTE program offers dual enrollment courses in partnership with Northwest-Shoals Community College in the programs of Welding and Emergency Medical Services. And Russellville City Schools partners with the Franklin County Career Tech Center in Belgreen to offer RHS students the opportunity to take painting and refinishing courses. Franklin County students come to RHS to participate in Automotive Tech and the Junior ROTC program.
Bendall said more than three quarters of RHS students participate in the career tech program. As school officials make parents and students aware of the career tech opportunities, that number will continue to grow, she explained.
“A lot of it is making students aware of opportunities we have for them. We're doing that through our courseLINK activities that introduce them to career tech programs and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. RHS will host courseLINK for students during activity periods February 20-22, and for parents on the evening of February 22. The event, set to take place in the RHS Fine Arts Building, will also be open to the public after the parent program on February 22nd.
Report cards from the State of Alabama were recently released for all Alabama public schools. A major criteria of those grades is based on how college and career ready students from a high school are when they graduate.
With that goal in mind, RHS began its Academy program where students can become career/college ready through CTE dual enrollment opportunities and/or earning credentials in CTE classes.
Once students choose an Academy to participate in, they select three courses in that career area. Academies include Engineering, Computer Science, Pre-Med, Agribusiness, Automotive, Business, Cosmetology, Fine Arts, Healthcare, Human Services, Leadership/JROTC and Manufacturing.
Bendall recently spoke with parents of Russellville Middle School eighth graders about the course opportunities they have available at RHS.
“Some of them are having trouble deciding what their kids will do because we offer so much at RHS,” Bendall said. “Working with local business and industry, we looked at areas we needed to grow and what we needed to change.
For example, we needed to develop a Computer Science Academy. We had one course in that area but not a Computer Science Academy. Now, we have a job opening for a Computer Science Academy teacher. And we'd like to see that program expand into cyber security,” Bendall said.
According to a recent Alabama Works study, the top three high demand occupations in the next decade in Alabama are software development/application, registered nurse and computer system analysts.
Dr. Stephanie Oliver, who is in charge of RHS' Academy of Pre-Med, hopes to offer a certified billing and coding course next year in response to a need for jobs in that area.
Bendall hopes to see additional instructors from NW-SCC come onto RHS' campus and teach courses to high school students. A new Emergency Medical Services program is led by a NW-SCC instructor at no expense to Russellville City Schools. 19 students signed up for that program in its first year.
“Northwest-Shoals sends the instructor and those kids will have college credit in those courses and it's paid for,” Bendall said. “A new list will be available February 28th and we'll see what other programs may allow additional instructors.”
In order to see a new facility come to life, Bendall believes a team effort is needed among Russellville City Schools, the State of Alabama and the City of Russellville.
“Career and Technical Education is building human capital and preparing kids to go to work and if we don't prepare those kids, we won't have industry here,” Bendall said. “Career Tech can do that two ways: 1. Kids are ready to work when they graduate (welding certificates, for example), and 2. Kids go on to college and want to come back home to start and support their families.
“We'll have a lot of kids leaving here who can go do patient care immediately. That's what we need. An investment in Career Tech is an investment in our state and in our city,” she added.
Russellville City Schools opened its Career Tech Building in the fall of 1968. At the time, it was heralded across Alabama as a state-of-the-art facility and was only the second CTE center in the state. Bendall believes it's time for Russellville to blaze a new trail in the growing area of Career Tech Education and that must include additional space for the program to grow.
“We have to look at what's coming in the future with jobs. We have to be proactive. When we stop being visionary, we stop growing and stop being successful,” Bendall said. “I want my grandkids and great-grandkids to have the opportunity to go to school here and have Russellville High School a thriving school as it is now,” she added.
