Putnam County Schools reporting success with its criminal justice and cosmetology career education programs.
CTE Supervisor Jackie Vester said the programs are reaching full capacity. Vester said the school system decided to offer the programs to meet a large demand in the Upper Cumberland.
“We always try to match our programs of study in CTE to both student and industry demand,” Vester said. “Both are important stakeholders. You know obviously, we don’t want to prepare our students for jobs that don’t exist.”
Vester said the school system has used the Innovative School Models grant to build a lab for an aesthetics program at Upperman High School. Vester said the program has partnered with TCAT Upper Cumberland to hopefully have a program that would help students obtain certifications and be ready to work upon graduating high school.
“We do hope that all students will be able to complete that license before they graduate from high school,” Vester said. “Of course, this is year one so it will be a couple of years before we see if that dream can become a reality.”
Vester said law enforcement will always be a big need in the Upper Cumberland. Vester said the law enforcement aspect of the criminal justice program has intrigued a lot of students.
“Students are extremely interested right now in becoming lawyers, looking a the police side of things, looking at forensics but it just really interests them,” Vester said. “You know maybe it’s exposure from television shows and movies but students are showing a lot of interest.”
Vester said by federal regulations the programs can only have a maximum of 25 students per class. Vester said if the programs do not have enough spots for all the students interested they will assign leftover students to a different program a student may be interested in. Vester said they let eighth graders visit the programs to help them choose from the CTE programs offered before they begin school at the high school level.
