Chris Lawson /
dcphoto@ccnewspapers.net
ThunderRidge High School junior Alexandra Holt laughs
while getting her hair shampooed by another Douglas County School
District student Oct. 6 at Englewood Beauty College.
By Joan Gandy
Social studies, biology and literature are not always at the top
of a high school student’s list of favorite classes. Sometimes more
practical courses such as agriculture, cabinet making, horses and
the culinary arts, can have greater appeal for the junior or senior
looking toward life after graduation.
For those students, the Douglas County School District offers a
variety of career and technical education programs where students
can gain employment skills, leadership skills and social skills
that serve them past high school.
“They can go fresh out from the program and get a job,” said
Glen March, career and technical education coordinator for Douglas
County School District. “They don’t necessarily have to go to
college, but if they want to continue on they can.”
Each high school in Douglas County offers five on-site career
and educational programs – business, marketing, family and consumer
sciences, alternative cooperative education and technology
education.
In addition, agricultural education is offered at Douglas County
High School, which includes courses in agribusiness management,
horticulture management, landscape development and introduction to
animal science.
Other opportunities for vocational training are offered to
Douglas County High School students through the TH Pickens
Technical Center in Aurora and Arapahoe/Douglas Career and
Technical School, which offer programs including cosmetology, auto
technician, aviation technology, criminal justice, culinary
training and medical preparation.
Despite the variety of classes offered, spaces in the programs
are limited. The Arapahoe/Douglas Career and Technical School
serves students from Sheridan, Englewood, Cherry Creek, Littleton
and Douglas County school districts. Of 700 slots allotted for all
five districts, Douglas County School District pays for 125 at
about $1,750 per slot.
“In the majority of programs the slots are at capacity,” March
said. “We try to get everybody we can in, and then we go to the
waiting list.”
Limited spaces in the Arapahoe/Douglas Career and Technical
School are supplemented by 50 slots in TH Pickens, the Aurora
public school career and technical center, which costs the district
between $1,800 and $2,200 per slot.
Even with the additional spaces, there is not enough room in all
the programs for the number of students interested.
“Currently, there are more students interested in these programs
than can be served,” March said. “We definitely need to build our
own career center or find areas to expand these existing
programs.”
Some of the most popular programs offered to Douglas County
students now are auto technology, cosmetology, medical prep and
criminal justice.
These classes are more than engaging in hands-on learning, said
Wayne Sica, a former New York City police officer who teaches the
course on criminal justice.
In Sica’s class, which works on a two-year cycle, in addition to
learning law enforcement, courts, corrections and crime science,
students are taught skills that can help them get a job in any
field.
“What police departments are looking for is young people who can
read and write clearly and objectively, and think critically,” Sica
said. “I try to use criminal justice as a means to teach those
English skills, and the students are enthusiastic to learn those
English skills because they are in that criminal justice
context.”
Contact Joan Gandy at jgandy@ccnewspapers.net.