Part I: Building a Future with CTE

(The two-part Building a Future series explores what North Marion High School has to offer students who are interested in exploring careers and skilled trades in the Career Technical Education program and the associated Willamette Career Academy (WCA). Read about the WCA next week in Part II: Building a Future with WCA.)

By Jillian Daley

Every student seems to have a different reason for taking classes through North Marion High School’s thriving Career Technical Education (CTE) programs.

North Marion students say their reasons include: building skills like woodworking that they can use around the house, applying concepts they’ve learned in math and science to hands-on projects, considering a career in technology or the skilled trades, and obtaining certifications and skills in a career a student’s already decided upon. 

“Whether their interests lie in accounting, woodworking, natural resources, or robotics, students learn valuable technical skills while exploring future career opportunities,” CTE Teacher Sherie Moran said.

There are a lot of opportunities to choose from. This school year, the North Marion’s CTE program encompasses six main courses: Agriculture, Business, Computer Science, Construction, Manufacturing, and Visual Communication. Those offerings may change based on staffing. However, North Marion has support from the Willamette Career Academy (WCA), which is available through the Willamette Education Service District and expands the CTE coursework available to students (read more next week in Part II: Building a Future with WCA). 

Beyond its own CTE classes and those through WCA, North Marion has even more opportunities. Students can tap into many school activities that align with their CTE studies: FFA, FBLA, and the local chapter of the national student organization SkillsUSA, which helps get students ready for a career in trade, technical, and skilled service. 

Through their CTE coursework “students learn important professional and workplace skills like integrity, work ethic, responsibility, teamwork, and multicultural sensitivity and awareness: We call this intersection of technical, personal, and workplace skills the SkillsUSA Framework,” said Moran, who co-advises the North Marion SkillsUSA Chapter with JR Rogers. “It is this framework that guides all of my programs because it takes all of these skills to make a good employee and entrepreneur.”

Students may not know all of these details, but they are certain of their own varied reasons for taking CTE classes, including trying out careers and seeing which one fits.

CTE Students Reaping the Benefits

Senior Ethan Gianella has tried his hand at several CTE classes, including those related to woodworking and metal fabrication (piecing together anything of stainless steel, from flag poles to sinks). However, Gianella’s not just taking classes; he’s thinking beyond graduation.

CTE “helps you choose your career,” he said. 

That’s important to him, and, he said, it should be to everyone.

“Because you can go out in the world and then realize you don’t like your job,” Gianella said. “Then, you’re already behind. You’ve got to like what you do. You can’t be happy in life if you don’t like what you do. Well, you can, but it helps if you like what you do.”

Ethan Wampole, also a senior in CTE, already knows his career of choice is that of a pipe welder, a lucrative job with many opportunities. Yet Wampole enjoys all his CTE classes, including woodworking, because they are practical.

“A lot of these classes, you can apply them to actual life — working on your own house,” Wampole said.

One of his classmates, junior Tyler Rooper, feels the same way about the utility of these skills for mending fences or building a desk, both of which she has done. Rooper said that being a part of CTE gives her strength.

“It’s showed me skills that most women don’t have these days, working with our hands,” she said. “Most people are afraid of the machines.”

She said that she has often used a lathe or table saw, and the key is not to be scared, but to respect the machines and work safely.

Rooper’s fellow woodworker, Angel Contreras, is only a sophomore but is already realizing that he could develop this new skill into a career in carpentry. 

“I could possibly be a house builder,” Contreras said.

In fact, after crafting a table in Moran’s workshop, he could already be more helpful to his dad when they put in a shed last year.

Junior Benjamin Rose is also interested in woodworking, but he particularly values the certifications available through CTE. Rose is looking forward to receiving an Oregon Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 10 card, a demonstration of 10 hours of safety training for construction workers. It’s that and the other training (which also includes National Center for Construction Education & Research certifications) provided through CTE courses that he appreciates the most.

“The knowledge and the more noticeable achievements would be the classes themselves, the OSHA 10 card, all the training, all of the things that will improve my resume and allow me to go into the field,” Rose said, sounding beyond his years.

The classes are also an opportunity to test out theoretical concepts that students have explored in other classes. For senior Joe Havel, the classes are a mathematical study. He’s pursuing a career as a mechanical engineer, and the CTE courses give him the chance to gain the kind of hands-on experience that deepens his understanding of the way things work. 

All of these students have different goals and interests around CTE, but there was one thing that they all agree on, and that’s Moran. 

Rooper said that “she’s given me a lot of opportunities.” Havel felt the same way, saying that Moran works hard to support the students. 

He called Moran “someone who’s willing to put in the extra effort to help you succeed,” he said.

She’s done that with all of these students, who are building their academic and skilled trade knowledge, their future, even before it begins.

To share stories on the North Marion School District, contact Communications Specialist Jillian Daley at jillian.daley@nmarion.k12.or.us.