Hillcrest High Career Technical Education Annex opens new opportunities for students
Hillcrest High juniors Destiny Smith and Kayla Robinson didn't have on nice dresses to attend a grand opening at Hillcrest High on Thursday night. Their clothing was gritty and showed burn marks, but it was perfect for the opening of the Career Technical Education Annex, where they are students studying welding.
"I'm planning to take up welding. I'll go to Shelton (State Community College) or some other trade school and take classes in welding," said Smith.
Robinson, who plans to go to a school in North Carolina said, "I'm going there for two years then I'll do electrical for two years. I'm planning on going to work somewhere. I like (this program) because it is getting us ready for the real world, clocking in on time every day. It's preparing me good."
And that is the goal for Hillcrest and the Tuscaloosa County School System, to prepare the students to advance their lives beyond high school. It is also a major need in West Alabama trade careers, which emphasize technical ability and specialized skill sets.
Donny Jones who heads the West Alabama Works program for the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce said that about 50% of workers in some trades are at retirement age. That means a very real need exists for young people to fill those important jobs. About 150 students are currently in the program at Hillcrest High.
"Career tech education is not the way it used to be 30 or 40 years ago. These skills that we are teaching our students can be taken out into the world. Even our more shop-type classes are so highly skilled and require so much knowledge, they can leave us and go straight to work or they can go to a two-year or four-year college. It's really more about the skills they are learning so they can lean on them when they graduate," said Keri Johnson, superintendent of education for TCSS.
"The programs that we have chosen for our career tech centers are in direct response to the industry in our area and the needs of employers in our area. Our programs are preparing our students to go work at home. We don't want them moving away, we want them doing the jobs right here in Tuscaloosa," Johnson said.
Jeff Hinton, Hillcrest High's principal, said the new program opens more career pathways to students.
"It's given them the chance to see multiple career technical options while they are in high school to give the opportunity to figure out if they like these career fields. It's giving them an opportunity to feel out what they might want to do in the future," Hinton said.
"We want to make sure that when they graduate, they leave Hillcrest and become productive citizens. That's what parents and families want and what we want as a school," Hinton said. "This is giving young men and women the ability to have hands-on training and it's going to pay dividends for West Alabama."
The new training annex was constructed using money made available by federal programs that were made available as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. TCSS also has training annexes at Tuscaloosa County High School and Brookwood High.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Hillcrest High celebrates Career Technical Education Annex opening
