Connections and learning go hand in
hand.
The hope is that students will graduate
from the system ready for college or
the workforce and that goal has been
exemplified in the new College and Career
Academy.
While the school has always offered
career-oriented classes, the CCA has expanded
the number of programs – called
pathways by the school - they can offer
and give students even more hands-on
experience in the classroom.
Starting in ninth grade, students can begin
to learn about career choices and gain
practical experience. These pathways are
taught in classrooms filled with equipment
that could be found in an actual restaurant
or a hospital or an engineering lab, just to
name a few options.
“So much of what is traditionally done –
talking to the students and handing out
worksheets – isn’t how things are done
here,” said Scott Hansen, engineering
April Perez Ramirez, fourth-grader at Elm Street, works on
her flower pot design during Genius Hour.
teacher at the CCA. “There’s lots of
design work and hands-on work. For
example, these students come in here
with experience working with 3-D
printers from elementary school on, and
that is valuable.”
That is not to say students still do not
have the traditional classroom experience,
he added.
“We still have times when we are sitting
at a computer working on designs
and some of them get impatient, but
if they can connect the design to an
actual project they will build, they have
more patience,” he explained.
In the cosmetology classroom, mannequins
are set up on chairs and surrounded
by mirrors to mimic an actual
salon. Ivan Le, a sophomore, said his
experience in Rome High’s pathways
has been invaluable and something you
can’t find just anywhere.
That preparation for life doesn’t begin
at the high school level. It’s emphasized
at every level.
OUTLOOK | MARCH 2021 33
Njoi Moore, junior at Rome High, (left) fastens a belt around senior Guadalupe Toledo’s waist durign a training
lesson in patient care fundamentals class at the CCA. The belt’s purpose is to help a nurse get patients out of bed.