Meet Skill Needs of All Students

As written about earlier, the Vail School District that Empire High School belongs to is making a switch from the optional senior half days to possible mandatory full schedules.

Although one of the major reasons for the change is lacking test scores, students do not seem to care as much about that as they do being extremely bored while taking two more elective classes that most people will not need to graduate. In order to lighten the mood of students, vocational training will be given at Empire.

JTED, which stands for Joint Technological Education District, is a part of a local Tucson community college called Pima Community College (PCC). The college offers a wide variety of benefits for enrolling in its classes while still in high school.

If students chooses to take a college class while attending high school, they get both high school and college credit for completing that course. That was the primary benefit for the direction that schools have been taking for many years now, which is college preparation. Since obtaining a job is now the primary focus of peoples’ lives, Empire is implementing vocational training on and off campus.

Maintaining a balance between entertainment and education is a must in order to ensure student productivity. The soon-to-be classes that are aimed at the interest of Empire are nursing, culinary arts, architecture, cosmetology and more. Unfortunately for some students, time management comes into play as well.

With an interest in hair styling, I signed up for the cosmetology course that will be offered. A few weeks later, I received a letter that described the course, schedule and location.

To get to the class, I would need to drive out to another campus, as only the health-oriented classes will be on Empire’s campus. After driving the distance, not only would the course fill in the time for the rest of a normal day’s hours of school, but it would also extend the day by another hour or two. In addition, I would also have to attend the class on Saturdays. For me, that is a little too much school in a week for a cosmetology course when the trade school is not that long or strenuous compared to four-year colleges.

The main reason kids do not agree with the schedule change is that they do not want to stay in school longer than they need to. Once the average student completes the required amount of credits for a college or university, they want to be done with school and roll smoothly into graduation. A prolonged schedule does not provide that option, and neither does the extension on the normal day that some of the JTED courses make.

Like with most solutions, the change benefits some people, but not all. Students who are looking to venture into career fields in health, for example, will receive good training for their future and rack up credits that will shorten their time in college as well.

While school administrators are looking to better their students, they are not 100 percent for the better of all students. Taking jobs and personal interests in mind, I say give half days to those who want them and get extra courses for those who will benefit from them. Even though the focus is on the majority of students and their futures, I am hoping that the focus will soon broaden to the needs of all.
 

About the author: Spencer Taylor is a junior at Empire High School who is a member of the International High Skool.