Sioux City Schools to Offer More Career Pathways
One period per day, Triet Nguyen, a junior at West High School, and Amanda Debates, a sophomore at East High School, become classmates with others from the two schools and North High School for an engineering course in a downtown Sioux City building.
Both Nguyen and Debates said they like having the ability to learn about engineering in a Career Academy course that isn’t otherwise available in the three Sioux City School District high schools. They both said it is good to get a taste of possible specialty college majors and professions before heading to a university.
“It gives you more options. It gives students who are interested to have a taste in high school,” Nguyen said.
“It is good, because some people aren’t interested in basic careers,” said Debates, who has taken Career Academy courses for both years of high school.
As the Career Academy initiative continues to expand, there will not only be a new wing for the classes but also first-time courses added for the 2018-19 academic year, starting this fall.
The district’s growing Career Academy allows students to take specialty courses in 30 so-called pathways, covering business and marketing, family and consumer science, health science and industrial technology.
Most Sioux City Career Academy courses follow a sequence, offer college credit, and in many cases offer a level of certification toward the workforce or further post-secondary study.
Director of Secondary Education Jim Vanderloo said 15 new courses will be offered in the fall semester. The school district has announced an expansion of pathways each December since 2011, and now there are roughly 150 courses within the 30 pathways.
View the full story from the Sioux City Journal
by Bret Hayworth