WOODS CROSS—Choosing a career can be daunting as a high school student but Woods Cross High and other high schools in the Davis School District offer Career and Technical Education (CTE) Pathways to help them prepare for those future decisions. Wednesday, Jan. 28, three junior highs that feed into Woods Cross High came for a special field trip to hear about what CTE programs are available as they finish ninth grade and move into high school next year.

“They’re coming to see the CTE Pathways, or what we call Explore the Wildcat Way so they can see what kind of programs that we have coming up,” said Brynn Clinger, CTE office administrative assistant at Woods Cross. “So as they’re filling out course requests they know what we have to offer.”

The CTE program is administered through the district, she said. “There’s one in each of the high schools and then they have a coordinator in the junior highs too, but mainly it’s run out of the high schools.”

Clinger said their job is to help the students find a pathway that they’re interested in and help them look at life after college. “So whether that’s taking college credits now through concurrent enrollment so that they can have that as they go into college or getting them into technical school with a skill that they're interested in or going down one of our pathways so that they can start focusing on stuff that interests them.”

When students are encouraged to be a pathway completer, she said. “Meaning as they pick one of these pathways, whatever that is, there are a certain amount of credits and classes they have to take in that area.”

For example, if they take the health science pathway, there are certain classes that they have to take, said Clinger. “They have to take one of our required classes and then a couple of different elective choices we have. If they do it while they’re here at Woods Cross, when they graduate they are now a pathway completer in that area. That means they’ve got a good basis to spring from as they go out into the world.”

It looks really good on their applications as they’re applying for different universities and colleges and jobs because it shows that they focused in that area, she said. “Even if they don’t go into further studies they can go out and get a job somewhere else. At least they have a good resume of building classes and things they can do.”

Clinger said her daughter completed her CNA licensing during her sophomore year. “So currently she’s working as a CNA as a junior in high school. Now she’s doing her medical assisting at the Catalyst center to further that.”

If students have their CNA or medical assisting license when they go into college they’re going to be making better money than most people who are trying to find campus jobs, she said. “This gives them a better jumping off point.”

“I love learning about anatomy and health science,” said senior Megan Madson. “I feel like it’s so applicable to life. You learn about diseases that people in your family have and you learn about things in your body that everyone should understand. So that’s why I think everyone should take at least a baseline medical anatomy class.”

Madson got into the medical assisting program her junior year. “Now I’m a certified medical assistant. I worked at the University of Utah at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital for a couple of months. I’m kind of using that as a jumping off point for my career. I’m hoping to go into nursing next year in college but I don’t know exactly where in the medical field I want to end up.”

“I’m interested in DECA, like the marketing classes,” said Cecela Goodman, a ninth grader at South Davis Junior High. “That seems pretty cool and I like talking to people and I feel like marketing can help with that.”

CTE has evolved over the years, said Clinger. “I remember back when I went to school in the Davis School District this wasn’t something we had. If we’d had this it would have been pretty amazing.”