Pinellas County Schools Pinellas County Designated as Model Community for High School Career Academies Only the Second District in the U.S. to Get This Distinction
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Centers for Excellence and Career Academies are at high schools Planning for the Future. Planning is key to getting on a path toward throughout the county. A trip to the PCSB.org website will lead you to their Career Education listings by school. However, a destination that best meets your interests, your goals and your we want to get you excited about the many career paths our abilities. In today’s rapidly changing work environment, students now more than ever need to get on a path that leads to employment, Pinellas County students can take advantage of through our and this applies to students who plan to attend college and those will school system. Some of these programs will be making their way to middle schools, too, so planning early can give your kids jump right into the work world after high school. an advantage. Students in these career education programs are To make high school more relevant, the Pinellas County School enrolled at that high school and they take required academics Board, along with the Pinellas Education Foundation and Ford alongside their specialized course work. The following chart of Next Generation Learning embarked on a five-year plan with programs reads like a college catalog, however this is high school a goal to enroll 50% of high school students into one of their and there is no additional tuition. The list is diverse to meet many career programs. At not quite half way through the plan, the needs of the job market as well a wide variety of interests, the program is already seeing increases in GPA and graduation abilities and goals for students. for students enrolled in career programs. They are at 35% enrollment, so not far at all from their goal. At the Superintendent’s Report on Career and Technical Education, Dr. Michael Grego spoke to a group of community leaders at the Pinellas Education Foundation’s Gus Stavros Center. Also present was Cheryl Carrier from Ford who came to announce that Pinellas had become their second Model Community in the U.S., and with it, a check for $25,000 to fund a National Conference to share successes with other school districts. That conference is scheduled for February at the Tradewinds Resort. In Dr. Grego’s presentation, he stated that Pinellas graduation rates are fairly typical for America: 72 percent for males and 82 percent for females. However, when isolating the students who are in a career program at a local high school, those graduation rates go up significantly to over 90 percent. Looking only at the rates for black males, a high risk category in any community, the rate is an impressive jump. Black males in a non-program high school path have a 68 percent graduation rate. For the ones in any of the numerous career programs, that rate goes up to 92.8 percent.
Career Pathways and Areas of Focus Offered in Pinellas County High Schools: Culinary Management Arts Catering
Parents may not realize that students in some programs can earn certifications for training at little to no cost for public school students. In 2012, students earned a total of 672 certifications. That number went up to over 1,700 for 2014. This is giving Pinellas students a jump on the competition for jobs and postsecondary education. Consider at Countryside High School for example, students enrolled in their Center for Computer Technologies and its supporting information technology courses have the opportunity to earn internationally recognized industry certifications which include:
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