Career and Technical Education
 An opportunity to learn technical and career readiness skills
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High quality CTE programs that include certification opportunities, alignment with college programs, and opportunities to engage with industry partners through work based learning can be found on every campus in the Kern High School District. In fact, the KHSD’s premier career training center, the Regional Occupational Center (ROC), offers advanced training opportunities for juniors and seniors from across the district.
The KHSD understands the value in students participating in CTE programs. Empirical evidence from the Association for Career & Technical Education (2017) shows that 93% of students participating in a CTE program of study graduate high school, compared to an 80% graduation rate for students that are not enrolled in a CTE program. This is one of the reasons why the KHSD has been working diligently to expand the CTE opportunities.
The past two years have seen a dramatic increase in CTE program opportunities at all KHSD school sites. New programs at our comprehensive sites have been developed in the areas of computer science, sports medicine, and aviation, just to name a few. In order to better display the different program offerings we have created a CTE website, Kern High Now, that lists all of the different CTE offerings found at each school site. Visitors to the Kern High Now site can search for CTE programs by school or industry sector, to all allow all stakeholders to better access our CTE programs.
Due to the KHSD’s population growth and understanding the value that high quality CTE programs provide, the KHSD has made the commitment to build a second career training center, which will be located in southwest Bakersfield. That campus has been designed to be an innovative training center that inspires student learning and promotes partnerships with industry, post-secondary partners, and the community. This campus is scheduled to open in August of 2019. For more information regarding the new CTE facility, please visit the New CTE Facility webpage.
In preparation for the opening of this campus, we have started new programs at the ROC, with the intention of moving them to the southwest campus when it opens. During the 2016-2017 school year new programs were started in sports medicine, pharmacy tech, robotics engineering, mobile app development, 3D animation, and video game design, Programs slated to start during the 2017-2018 school year are video production, introduction to health careers, small business entrepreneurship, and dental assistant. For a more detailed description of the programs offered at the ROC, please visit the Regional Occupational Center.
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Regional Occupational Center
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Not only is the KHSD building a second CTE facility, we have also made the commitment to modernize and expand the facilities at the ROC. We have been working closely with industry partners the past couple of years to design new and innovative programs as well as expanding some of our more impacted programs that will be offered at the ROC. The new programs include culinary arts, cosmetology, and construction. The programs that we are expanding are automotive technology and veterinary technology. All of these facilities are industry specific to provide our students with high quality training opportunities. The new programs at the ROC are scheduled to open in August of 2018. For more information about the modernization efforts and further ROC information, please visit the ROC webpage.
As you can see, there are a tremendous amount of opportunities for KHSD students through participation in any of our CTE programs. It is the mission of the KHSD to prepare students for college and career, and going through a high quality CTE program is a great way to accomplish that. We are always looking for feedback and new ideas, so please feel free to contact us if you have any input.