Culinary, Forensic Science, and Animation are just a few of the courses offered to students at the CTE Center to help them gain real-world experiences for the future.
The Career and Technical Education program at Frisco ISD has acted as an outlet for students since 2008, making it their mission to provide a learning environment that “exposes them [students] to skills and knowledge that expand creativity, problem-solving, and innovation” (CTEC Mission Statement). The CTE Center serves as a way for students to start planning for their future using the resources that are available in certain courses such as Culinary Arts 1 and Education Training.
Students in Culinary 1, a class geared toward those looking to pursue a career in culinary and cuisine, such as Lavine Pugaocampo, see the curriculum as a driving force in their journey to start their own businesses.
“I have this, like this experience. You know, I feel like…I can ask questions, you know, and learn, get feedback from[them] and so having this class you know, big one up for me.” Pugaocampo said.“I’m honestly I’m thinking about starting a like small restaurant, you know, food truck business, or just going to a cook for a restaurant.”
However other students, such as Ashley Vaughn, choose to take courses like Culinary Arts to gain skills that can be applied and adapted for use in other fields outside of the class she is enrolled in.
“Well, culinary isn’t something that I want to do as a job as far as like, some fun, like, thing that I know how to do. But I do want to become a doctor. So having like, nice skills and like stable hands and stuff helps about it.”
Vaughn said.
Sara Hosford, the head culinary teacher at the center, has witnessed her students gain the skills taught here at the CTE Center that better prepare them to apply them in their futures.
“So what is learned and taught in culinary schools is what we do here,” Hosford says, “That is just the groundwork of getting the students ready for any form of success. So when our students do go off to culinary school, they’re typically a lot more successful because they already have learned how to do the vast majority of the things that culinary schools are looking for.”
A key part of CTE’s success has been its dedication to students’ career journey during and after high school, teaching them pathway-specific skills that help them in college. But the CTE Center doesn’t only teach the skills, they give experience opportunities. Nicky Fryman, the Education and Training Internship Teacher, teaches a course that offers students the ability to shadow a teacher within the school district and knows how impactful early exposure can be to a student’s future.
“ I mean, there are other internship programs like this, but they’re able to get a taste of what it’s like to be a real classroom teacher, when they’re juniors in high school, and kids who want to be a teacher,” Fryman says, “They might get to go in and observe and stuff like that. But they don’t get to like, teach and have more of the primary teacher role until the end of their senior year.”
Isabella Jagot, a student intern with the Education and Training program, took the course to gain experience in the teaching environment with the help of a teacher mentor, using it as an opportunity to test the waters of this career path.
“We’re able to learn from our [mentors, and we’re able to pick up certain like classroom management techniques that we can implement into our classrooms in the future.” Jagot says, “It’s really helpful to help us know, like, where we want to go, what school is going to have the best program that fits us. And we also learn a lot about, like, how it is to be a teacher, and actually being inside of the classroom helps like you decide if you really want to go into the field or not.”
Even though Jagot is still deciding whether or not teaching may be her cup of tea, being in the program within FISD has opened the doors for her career path.
“Frisco ISD has a program where if you graduate from Frisco ISD, then you automatically get an interview to be a teacher here, which is really handy.”
Teachers at the CTE Center hope that their impact benefits their students in their journey to their careers, making them future-ready.
“CTE combined gets all students ready for future ready, I think that’s pretty much why this building exist is so you guys can enjoy the experience of trying things out before designating those dollars for college.” Hosford said.
