Changes will lead to more opportunities for area students
By Kellen Olshefski
The Walworth County Education Alternative High School underwent a rebranding this year to the Career and College Academy with the hopes of providing area students with more opportunities in the future.
According to CCA principal Kelly Demerath, while the school is located on Gateway Technical College’s campus in Elkhorn and students have always been able to take classes there, they’ve found that engaging students in career pathways has resulted in better outcomes.
“So, we worked with Gateway and talked with them about that, and they were really onboard with it, because they’ve been offering academies but the chance to then partner with an early college high school was really attractive to them,” she said.
Demerath said those discussions ultimately led to Gateway writing a grant for the Elkhorn Area School District for Career Pathways.
“It’s the idea that getting students younger than 11th and 12th grade – which we have traditionally served – on the Elkhorn campus where they really get a feel of culinary, cosmetology, accounting and criminal justice,” she said. “If they can do that, then it somewhat gets them hooked and it has better outcomes for them in completing a degree.”
The bonus is that it’s free to the students and Demerath said if that can be articulated to an associate’s degree before the time they graduate high school, it’s almost unheard of.
Demerath said after Gateway received the grant, the district began planning pathways at the CCA and then applied with the Department of Public Instruction for an expansion grant, a $750,000 5-year grant that will help the district expand the CCA’s services to students in grades 9 through 12.
With this being the planning year for that grant, Demerath said the CCA will officially be opening to students in grades 9 and 10 in July 2021.
More opportunities
As for new opportunities students will receive through the CCA, Demerath said the school will be bringing in Driver’s Education and will focus more on career preparation in terms of youth apprenticeships.
Director of School-to-Work Opportunities Chris Trottier said the changes fall in line with the work the EASD has done in the past to make a universal agreement with students that they’ll be prepared for the next step.
“When they leave the EASD, it’s going to be more than just walking out of there with credits,” he said. “It’s going to be this almost credential, resume-driven process of earning more than just a grade and a diploma. We want our kids to go out and be future ready and competitive, no matter what their post high school goals are.”
Trottier said the goal is for every student to have a youth apprenticeship, career certifications, dual credits and an identified career pathway with specific career-based learning experiences within them. For example, he said, this would be applicable to not only a student who wants to go into welding, but also one who may want to become a mechanical engineer and get a degree from Milwaukee School of Engineering.
“Either way, we want all of those kids to have that experience,” Trottier said. “The best way I can sum it up is think about your resume. You build your resume and you want to have these dynamic experiences, certifications, credentials and references that really show that you are ready to step into a job,” Trottier said.
“The bigger the breadth of experiences that are also intentional within a pathway, the size of that kid’s resume gets even larger,” he added.
Powerful investment
Demerath said the investment made in helping students try different pathways before graduation and helping them determine what might be next is very powerful.
“It’s powerful for the kids who are already going to a four-year college, but it’s really powerful for the kids who may join the world of work and don’t want to start out at the bottom of the ladder,” she said.
“I just think that where the district is going in terms of options is really amazing,” she added.
Trottier said he, Demerath and her staff have been passionate about helping students who didn’t find their niche in the comprehensive high school and have done an amazing job in the past. But, he explained, this is truly the next step in the program’s evolution to opening up more opportunities for more students and being intentional about providing them with future-ready, stackable credentials.
Demerath said they’ve found there are a lot of students interested in that connection to Gateway who are looking for something different in their education that will expand their high school experience.
“We felt that as more students and families were interested in our school and the services we offer, we had to expand and meet that,” she said. “Not only do the students take Gateway classes and get solidified in a program, but sometimes one of the most valuable decisions you ever make is taking a class and finding out that it’s something you don’t want to do or you’re between two subjects.”
Demerath also said it’s important because it allows students to experience the process of registering for college.
“The fact that they have our high school teachers walking them through that – and also as their advisors – is like college with a safety net,” she said. “That has been one of the biggest advantages to taking classes at Gateway at our school, because we are always following up on them to ensure their success.”
Demerath further noted the program even allows students to take college level classes or general education classes that can then be transferred to a University of Wisconsin school in the future.
“For a lot of different pathways, this is a great model for students looking to be career and college ready,” she said.
Trottier said with the CCA being in “the backyard” of the Walworth County districts the school currently partners with – Elkhorn, Williams Bay and Lake Geneva – it also allows the students to access opportunities and experiences at their home high schools, such as athletics, band, choir, courses and even extra-curricular activities as well as their home school graduation ceremony.
Additionally, Demerath noted that Gateway has been incredibly supportive of the program and the interests of students, for example, bringing a cosmetology course – which has traditionally only been offered at the Burlington GTC campus – to the Elkhorn campus because of interest among students.
“It’s just an amazing time to be at our school,” Demerath said. “We’re just really excited about opening up all of these opportunities.”
