LOGAN — On his monthly showcase of the Logan City School District (LCSD), Superintendent Frank Schofield talked about the partnership between his district and Bridgerland Technical College (B-Tech).
He brought with him LCSD counselor Brandon Shaffer, director of marketing and public relations at B-Tech Adrienne O’Brien and B-Tech student success advisor Erin Weeks.
On KVNU’s For the People program last week, Schofield said that for decades the state of Utah has promoted what’s known as “2 – 4 or more.”
“When you graduate from high school you need to pursue post-secondary education. So, you can go to a two-year program that’s going to give you a technical certification that allows you to go out and get a good job in a career field where you’ll have opportunities for future advancement.
“You can go to a four-year program, which usually gets you a university degree, or more. And those are all your programs that are going to take you beyond high school,” Schofield said.
The Frederick Quinney Lawson Health Sciences bldg at B-tech
He said statewide there’s been a focus on how to strengthen that idea of “2 – 4 or more,” how to make students understand that there’s a whole range of opportunities for them.
Shaffer talked about the Career & Technical Education (CTE) program.
“And they kind of start in the middle school, I haven’t worked with the middle school directly that much. Frank might correct me a little bit, but they have robotics and woodworking and computer science kinds of options,” he said.
Shaffer said he’s been at Logan High School for 17 years, and they have seen an evolution in the programs and options for students.
O’Brien said it does start early, getting kids interested in skills-based fields.
“One of the things that we actually do when kids hit 7th grade is, we bus about 4,000 kids to our campus over two days. We have all of our programs out there doing some kind of activity. They can weld, they can make tacos, they can work with the robots,” O’Brien explained.
She said that is where they hope to help them find a spark or a passion, so they can go back to their high schools and start growing that passion with CTE, which stands for Careers and Technical Education.
Weeks said she remembers Career Day in school and it had kind of a field trip feel to it.
“I remember my very first career days, I remember the excavators, the cherry-pickers. I remember going to weld and I still have my little plate that I got to weld by myself. Me and my friends were walking around, we gave all the kids bags, they’re color-coded, but I don’t think they realize they’re color-coded (laughs).
“I remember putting all of my trinkets in my bag and going home and being like, ‘Dad look at this!’ Now here I am, six years later, working for that same company,” Weeks said.
B-Tech has an event for adults called ‘Get the Scoop’ on September 30th from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
All of the over 40 programs are divided into seven industry areas and they will showcase a bunch of activities, including their brand new health sciences building.