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School District take CTE courses as early as middle school.
The middle school has four CTE courses, and the high school has nine. Students may learn home economics and basic woodworking skills in middle school before moving on to career readiness and upper-level metal and woodwork in high school. The district also offers other CTE courses on technology, independent living and more.
“For being a very remote, smaller school, we try to do our very best to offer as many things as we can,” said Amanda Burnett, principal for grades six through 12.
Many of the CTE courses have been at the district for at least 15 years and are also mostly funded by the state. As part of their CTE coursework, students have gone out to identify trees and types of wood and tested samples of water from the Selkirk area.
Instead of FFA or SkillsUSA, students in the CTE program serve 40 hours of community service for the Cutter Theatre in Metaline Falls, the Lions Rail Riders in Ione or the American Legion.
“We’re thankful for the industries in our area and for our community that supports our CTE programs,” Burnett said. “They give our students opportunities to have real-life and hands-on experiences for many of these courses.”
Some CTE courses earn students college credit with Spokane Community College, as well as industry- recognized Microsoft and wastewater certifications.
After graduation, students in the CTE program have gone on to work for major industries such as forestry, welding, metal- cutting and water reclamation in Selkirk and other areas — wherever the jobs are, Burnett said.
“Career and technical education courses help students be successful posthigh school,” Burnett said.
‘Work with their hands’
Like other schools, the CTE courses at Priest River Lamanna Junior/Senior High School are hands-on.
The junior/senior high school has four CTE career pathways — software and programming, business, industrial maintenance and forestry.
England teaches a software and programming class. Four to five students in his class use Adobe software programs to design the yearbook while the rest train in Microsoft, Intuit or other software programs. Eisler is one of the latter.
“Once they’ve learned the basics, then you provide a project for them to do where they can apply their skills and knowledge,” England said. “So it’s more hands-on in that way.”
The CTE program receives funding from the state and, unlike the Cusick and Selkirk School Districts, local bonds. The former has gone toward certification training and exams in Adobe, Microsoft and Intuit, as well as other expansions to the CTE program.
“Recognizing that there’s money available from the state of Idaho, the education department, … that motivated us to get started,” England said.
Most of the CTE courses were added this or last year.
The CTE program’s advisory board represents several local businesses, including a “big” forestry group, England said. Since welding is only about 5% of what welders at the forestry group do, it transitioned into industrial maintenance to fill a gap in the West Bonner forestry industry. The other CTE career pathways fill similar gaps.
“We do kind of focus on [forestry] as our primary preparation,” England said. “Because that is such an important local job.”
Eisler is staying in the CTE program through her junior and senior years, during which she may do one of the internships the junior/senior high school offers to students in those grades.
After she graduates, Eisler said she plans to attend college — ideally, University of Idaho. Though she is still figuring out what courses to take, Eisler is interested in bookkeeping and marine biology.
“I have three CTE classes at the beginning of the day, and they’re pretty helpful,” Eisler said. The classes are programming, business applications and fundamentals of information systems. “They make me focus a lot more.”
