Gain Career Experience in High School with Career-Tech

“Career-tech is the rage.” This quote makes us smile! This article in the Columbus Dispatch from 2018 may be a bit old, but the messaging in our media is still the same. Businesses are hungry for skilled employees. Career-tech education can be the solution.

Years ago, we learned something valuable – a message we’ve been spreading ever since. Career-tech today is NOT the same as “vo-tech” when we went to school.

Here in Ohio, At The Core has partnered with the Delaware Area Career Center, Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools, Great Oaks Career Campuses, and Tolles Career and Technical Center. We continue to be compelled to share the value of career-tech for all students—whether college OR career bound after high school!

Career-Tech Today

Career-tech today offers high tech, hands-on experiences students can’t get in their high school. Think of the classes as super electives that live in a building other than your home high school. Programs like healthcare, animal science, engineering, IT, cybersecurity, robotics, bioscience, pharmacy, dentistry, digital design, and many more are revolutionizing the experiential learning available to our kids while they are in high school.

Some students benefit from learning in a different way—not pencil and paper, but hands-on. We know many students who are taking AP or IB coursework and still love the hands-on learning they do for half of their day at their career-tech school. Students can also earn college and career credentials in high school.

Let’s just say this out loud: our children will not have the same college experience we did.

It won’t be the same. Times have changed. The cost has changed, too. For our students, experts say their formal education will be more like a train they hop on and off during their lives. After a career-tech experience, students can attain enough high tech knowledge to go straight into the working world (and make enough to live independently). Later, they may return for the additional schooling they need as their career progresses.

Others will go directly to college after high school. 78% of career-tech students enroll in full time post-secondary education immediately after high school. Can you imagine the college application of a student applying to an engineering program who can talk about the robots they built and programmed and the manufacturing internship they had while in high school? Admissions officials (and future employers) will take notice and know this student is committed to their selected major/targeted career.

How can parents learn more?

Families in Ohio can find the career-tech school for their school district by clicking here. Not in Ohio? Here is a resource to learn about career-technical education in every state.

Find out more about their programming. Attend an open house. Reach out to someone—they are all happy to share about their facilities and programs.

For Central Ohio and Cincinnati parents of 6th to 10th graders, you can take advantage of free coffee chats throughout the year with representatives from some area career-tech schools (see below).

Spending a bit of time now to hear about available programs helps you plan your student’s schedule in the future! Click here for our event list, and find the recordings from past chats here.

School districts:

• The Delaware Area Career Center serves Olentangy, Buckeye Valley, Big Walnut, Delaware, Westerville, and Worthington.
• Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools serves: Amanda-Clearcreek, Berne Union, Bexley, Bloom-Carroll, Canal Winchester, Fairfield Union, Gahanna Lincoln, Groveport Madison, Hamilton, Liberty Union-Thurston, New Albany, Pickerington Central, Pickerington North, Reynoldsburg, Teays Valley, Walnut Township, & Whitehall Yearling.
• Tolles Career and Technical Center serves Dublin, Fairbanks, Hilliard, Jonathan Alder, London, Madison‐Plains, & West Jefferson school districts.
• Great Oaks Career Campuses serves 36 different school districts in the Cincinnati area including Mason, Loveland, Forest Hills, Fairfield, and Wyoming to name a few.

Updated 10/2023

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