Aspen High School students praise career-oriented education
Students presented their experience with Career and Technical Education program
Skyler Stark-Ragsdale/The Aspen Times
Aspen High School senior Audrey Woodrow’s research changed the approach of the school.
Woodrow said she collected school data about the gender divide in subjects while participating in the school’s Career and Technical Education program, which gets students involved with local organizations to explore various career pathways.
“A lot of her work is going to go to our initiatives as a staff,” AHS Work-Based Learning Coordinator Diane Godfrey told members of the partner organizations in a presentation about the program on Thursday at Aspen High School.
Woodrow’s project is one example of the school’s initiative to help students pursue technical education. Through the program, students learn career-oriented skills — like conducting data-based studies in her case — and get the opportunity to partner with local organizations.
“It is a great pathway for building upon your knowledge,” she said, referring to the school’s program.
Godfrey told members of the partner organizations that students become more prepared for their life after high school because they can pursue their career interests through the program.
“That is really what career and technical education represents — it is our students getting authentic learning experiences in the community,” she said. “It’s our students learning skills that can support your businesses and the changing world that they’re going out into.”
The school offers a number of pathways: aviation, engineering and STEM, outdoor leadership, multimedia, hospitality, culinary, construction and woodshop, business, and work-based learning.
This shift toward career-oriented education allows students to combine the values of traditional vocational school with those of high-level theory classes like the International Baccalaureate program, Godfrey added.
Interested in the gender divide in different subject areas, Woodrow used the school-wide data she collected to determine how male and female students feel about their academic aptitudes.
She found that female students feel most confident in their language arts abilities while male students feel most confident in their abilities in math and science. Within STEM, female students feel most confident in biology while male students feel most confident in physics.
“It’s exciting to see how a project can turn into something real,” Godfrey said, referring to the school’s plan to be mindful of the data when designing the curriculum.
Senior aviation student Trevon Ward said before finding his passion for aviation through the program, he was not interested in school. Since joining the career-oriented program, he transformed into a straight A student and plans to follow his discovered passion for flying. He earned his pilot’s license on Nov. 7.
“The Career (and) Technology Education Program has changed my life completely. I came into Aspen High School, had no clue what I wanted to do, was not a great student,” Ward said. “(I) found the aviation program. Through that program, my grades completely flipped.”
The aviation program partners with the Aspen Flight Academy to teach students to be pilots. Through the program’s work-based learning initiative and its partnership with the local aviation industry, he said he gained real-world experience.
Senior multimedia student Gia Galindo Bartley said she plans to take the skills she learned in her technical education — between her experience among newspaper, magazine, and yearbook writing — past high school.
“Journalism has really brought me so much passion in my life,” she said, adding, “… I’m going to college for journalism.”
Senior business student Blake Zilberman said the program inspired him to start a nonprofit that helps increase financial literacy for nearby Indigenous populations. He added that in the business program he gained work experience while collaborating with the Aspen Skiing Company on a marketing project.
“Which is honestly just a great highlight of the amazing, real-world experience that we get as a part of these classes,” Zilberman said.
Though junior construction student Roman Dupps doesn’t know if he wants to put his aesthetic-oriented construction skills toward a career, he thinks the program has given something he can pursue, at least as a hobby, throughout his life.
“This program is good for my well-being,” he said.
Business teacher Steve Sand said, regardless of whether the students decide to pursue a career in the technical skill they learn in the program, he thinks it gives students options and improves their sense of self.
“They might go on to a regular college degree, work in the business world,” Sand said. “But what they learned in wood shop or aviation just builds their self esteem, confidence, (it) could be a little side hustle, or a hobby, or it could be a career.”
Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.
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