Outside the classroom: Local teens participate in school/work programs

Some high school students are working after school to save for college or buy that long-dreamed-of first car. Others are working in conjunction with their school work to learn how to enter the workforce when they graduate.

Ten school districts from a four-county area send students to the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center, which offers a two-year marketing program. The first year the students spend the mornings in class and work in the afternoons in a school-run store, said Libby Guilliams, director of student services at the CTC.

The second year students expand their work experience in what is usually their senior year. Guilliams said local students spend about 45 minutes in the morning touching base with a teacher in the classroom; then they're released to go to work in an internship with either a local business or one of the businesses the school runs.

Students from one of the out-of-town sending schools, who most likely have jobs in the towns they live in, come in once a week to connect with their teachers.

Students in the business technology program at CTC follow the same scenario, Guilliams said. In their first year, their classroom instruction includes learning computer program, basic accounting, customer service, filing and other office-related courses.

"Everything we do has a hands-on program," Guilliams said.

Sometimes students work in retail businesses for their internships. Some of the programs are on campus.

"We have an auto body shop here with four bays," Guilliams said. "People from the community, faculty and staff can bring their cars here. The Culinary Arts program runs a restaurant and caters events."

Guilliams said she was recently pleasantly surprised to see a public service announcement on television that one of the broadcast production students entered in a contest and won.

"Everything they do here is real life stuff," she said "In our aviation program they take up planes and fly."

Students are treated like employees during their internships and are paid. Sometimes they also work for the companies after school.

"A lot of times it leads to employment" (after graduation), Guilliams said.

Sometimes a student might want a specific program in a business that has no openings, but the company and the student might agree that the student can work there unpaid. At this point, the education is the most important part of the program.

"The employer reports back to the teacher and they communicate about the student and tasks," Guilliams said. "There's an evaluation form the employers fill out."

It's education in real time.