How Centre County career-technical programs plan to give students hands-on experience amid pandemic
More than five months of planning and discussion culminated Tuesday when several schools in Centre County reopened for the first time since March.
Some districts offered a variety of learning options, including in-person, online or a combination of the two. Other schools, like the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology, were more straightforward in their offerings.
The Spring Township-based career and technical education center welcomed back all of its students, who rely on in-person instruction to gain hands-on experience.
And while some families have shied away from gathering at school, enrollment in CPI’s high school programs is up about 3% when compared to 2019, according to Secondary Education Vice President MaryAnn Volders.
About 464 students are enrolled in high school programs for the 2020-21 academic year, up from about 450 students last year, she said.
“We want to provide as much hands-on time while we’re physically in the building as we can because we expect that we’ll be closed at some point in time in the future,” Volders said. “We’re ready to do that, but it’s so important to give them as many hours of hands-on work from the very beginning.”
The approach isn’t atypical for vocational schools.
State College Area School District’s Career and Technical Center plans to “front-load” its classes to give students an opportunity to grasp fundamental concepts before a potential closure, Director Ben Mordan said.
“Our goal is to help prepare students for employment and postsecondary (education),” Mordan said. “The students coming to school are dealing with a lot of the same challenges that people out in the industry are, so we’re taking this as an opportunity to prepare these students to figure out how to solve problems, report to work and figure out ways to get work done even though it’s not the ideal setting.”
Educators implemented several other changes to mitigate the potential spread of COVID-19, from packaging materials to reduce sharing, buying cheaper, easier to replace supplies, giving students mask breaks and establishing cohorts.
CPI’s plans were laid out in a 34-page health and safety plan, along with a nine-page document that outlines pandemic response guidelines, procedures and expectations. SCASD outlined its plans in a 61-page health and safety plan.
“When these students graduate 10 years from now, I want them to look back and remember the things that we did for them,” Mordan said. “I don’t want them to worry about what we didn’t do for them.”