Not only do you have to get good grades to graduate from high school, you also need to fulfill the graduation requirements.
Students are required to finish all Fine Arts, Career Technical Education (CTE), and electives credits by graduation.
A few CTE classes offered in Carlmont are Computer Science, instrumental and choral classes, Journalism, and Engineering and Green, which also meets the elective requirement for UC’s and CSU’s.
The California Department of Education said, “the CTE program was designed for seamless pathways that bridge secondary and postsecondary education in developing skills required to workplace while pursuing personal aspirations.”
Jordan Pon, a junior who is currently taking animation as a CTE class said, “The class has given me a new perspective on art and actually now, I want to go into and major in animation in college.”
Furthermore, the United States Education Board states that every student has to take a CTE for at least one year.
CTE was adopted by the State Board of Education (SBE) on May 11, 2005. SBE said the CTE program is “cutting edge knowledge about career options, technology, and skills required for success in adult life.”
A senior, Luke Li also thought CTE classes were there “to give real life experiences for careers that students might want to pursue in the future.”
Some feel that CTE and electives will expose them to new possible interests.
Andrew Durlofsky, who took photography as a CTE course class thought, “I think it is good that electives are required because people can go out of their comfort zone and learn new ways of different styles of expressing themselves in different [elective] courses.”
However, several students think the fine arts and elective requirements are distressing.
Simeon Giverts, a junior said, “I don’t mind the [elective requirement] but art seems a little unnecessary to me, because I am more of a science guy than an artistic and cultural person.”
Li agreed, “For electives there’s just the general requirement. Electives don’t fulfill anything in particular. They’re just to give the students the ability to experience a wide range of subjects.”
Some students thought electives and CTE classes are taking away scarce opportunities of fun and relaxation.
“I don’t like art and so taking art classes are a waste of my time because I could be doing something else that I want to do instead,” stated junior Anne Litton.
The CTE program has created 58 career paths which was organized by 15 industry sectors.
The formation of the program consisted of 50 representatives from businesses and industries, California’s postsecondary schools, classroom teachers, parents, school administrators, the Legislature, and many other representatives have helped with this program.
In 2005, the governor initiated to improve and strengthen CTE through Senate Bill 70 (SB 70) by Senator Scott.
SB 70 advocated $20 million from community college accounts to be used for improvement of CTE in both college and high schools.
Li said, “$20 million is a lot of money, and I do think that the CTE program is a great program but I am not sure if that’s efficiently used or not but it’s something that we should continue investing in.”
Ralph Crame who is the assistant vice principal for 9th and 11th graders, said, “Any time [the SBE] are looking to improve programs and improve education in a field that they think would be beneficial to future students, I think is always good.”
According to a statement made by SBE, they explained that, “Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of students will benefit from improved CTE programs.”
