photo by Sarah A. Miller The Frisco ISD Career and Technical Education Center is in its fifth year of offering classes to high school students. The center offers various career pathways such as graphic design, legal studies, culinary arts and architecture. Classroom labs are designed to recreate industry standard environments. Tyler ISD officials are interested in modeling the district's new career and technical education center after the one in Frisco ISD. The TISD center is one of six projects included in the $160.5 million bond package approved by Tyler voters in May.

 

 

FRISCO — Andrea Shaver has long had an interest in graphic design, but with the help of courses at Frisco Independent School District’s Career and Technical Education Center, the 18-year-old got an internship, started doing freelance work and eventually began her own business.

Now she plans to attend the Rochester Institute of Technology, major in graphic design and continue to grow her business.

“It’s a lot of teaching and formulating and really helping you discover what you want,” Miss Shaver, who just graduated from Frisco ISD, said of that district’s CTE center.

The center fuses business and education in a way that exposes students to careers and real-world work environments while in high school.

Frisco ISD’s center is an example of what Tyler ISD officials are planning to create locally after the successful May bond election. A CTE center is among six projects to be built as part of TISD’s $160.5 million bond package.

A CTE center will allow TISD to provide adequate facilities designed for the programs being taught in them, district officials and bond proponents have said. They also have said the center will provide a motivation for students to stay in school, allow them to be better engaged while there and prepare them for college and/or the workplace after high school.

As TISD officials finalize the facility’s design, they are looking at similar centers around the state for guidance, including Frisco ISD.

Inside Frisco ISD’s CTE Center

The first thing that strikes many visitors to Frisco ISD’s Career and Technical Education Center is the look.

Located in the same area as a community college, the campus’s exterior offers a modern design with plenty of shapes, angles and windows. Inside, the lobby features plenty of open space and natural light.

An open design allows students to see the second floor and its balcony along with the windows that stretch from floor to ceiling.

“We wanted it to be different looking than our other high school (campuses),” center Principal Dr. Wes Cunningham said. “We wanted it to (represent) industry and business, have a lot of collaboration.”

The center, which opened in 2008, houses the upper level career and technology classes in 14 areas of study. About 1,200 students, or 25 percent of the district’s high school students, use the facility, Cunningham said. More than 3,300 have requested to take classes there next year.

The two-story facility offers more than 125,000 square feet of classroom space and industry-style environments.

Broadcast journalism students have a studio where they work to produce shows for the district’s YouTube and cable channels.

In the health science lab, four hospital beds, a handicapped accessible bathroom and a programmable mannequin that functions as a pseudo patient provide students the opportunity to learn by doing.

The legal studies program offers students a mock courtroom with judge’s bench, jury box and gallery.

When students engage in the hands-on application part of their courses, they do the bulk of the work. For example, in broadcast journalism, students are responsible for all aspects of production including anchoring, lighting, filming and editing, Cunningham said.

A campus store, soon-to-be credit union, restaurant and deli, all of which are run by students and open to the public, are just a few examples of how students get real-world work experience.

In almost all of the programs, students can earn some type of certification before they graduate.

This includes veterinary assistant in animal science, certified nurse assistant and pharmacy technician in health science, ServSafe in culinary science, and TCLEOSE in law, public safety, corrections and security, according to district information.

In animation and architecture, they can come out with experience and possibly certification on certain software programs.

Frisco ISD graduate Collin Anthony, 18, said the courses at the center are helpful because students are able to get hands-on experience they wouldn’t otherwise.

Planning for TISD’s CTE Center

The design of Frisco ISD’s facility is one of the features TISD officials like. Crystal Forrest, TISD’s career and technical education director, said the way the training spaces are set up between classrooms is a plus.

The versatility of some of the spaces enables them to be repurposed for program changes, which is also a positive, Ms. Forrest said.

Perhaps one of the biggest factors TISD wants to replicate is the ambience.

“When you walk in, it doesn’t feel like a school,” Ms. Forrest said. “It (has) more of a business feel to it.”

SHW Group designed the Frisco facility. Corgan Associates out of Dallas and Sinclair & Wright Architects out of Tyler are the firms designing the Tyler facility.

The $33.5 million TISD center will be built on a 25-acre parcel off Earl Campbell Parkway near the Tyler Junior College West Campus. It will serve TISD high school students taking upper-level career and technical education courses. 

Ms. Forrest said an initial steering committee, made up of seven community members in the higher education and business worlds, has narrowed down the program areas that will be offered in the facility, but they have not determined the exact pathways.

An example of a program area is health science with pathways such as pharmacology, nursing and nurse aide.

Almost 25 percent of TISD’s juniors and seniors take upper-level CTE courses, Ms. Forrest said.

Although TISD students can earn certifications in some of the pathways offered, the goal is to offer a certification in all pathways in which it makes sense, Ms. Forrest said.

The TISD facility will be about 147,000 square feet, according to district information.

Ms. Forrest said they are finalizing the equipment needs for each of the program areas and continuing to develop business partnerships to keep programs relevant and provide students with internship opportunities.

The district also has a CTE advisory committee and is recruiting more people to create subcommittees that could provide specific input for specific programs. The idea is to make sure what students are learning is in line with what industry needs. The new center is being planned with this in mind as well, Ms. Forrest said.

Each space will be designed for the type of training to be done in it “so that the transition from either high school to postsecondary or work is a smooth transition,” she said. “The goal is they don’t have gaps.”

Construction on TISD’s CTE center is scheduled to begin this year with a planned fall 2015 opening.