SPHS offering career pathways for students
September 09, 2015
By Brian D. Wilson
Santa Paula News
The Santa Paula Unified School District Board got an update on VC Innovates at Santa Paula High School.
Assistant Principal Laurie Arnold is coordinating the program. She said that SPHS is part of a regional consortium that received a $13 million grant to develop career pathways at the school. The program began last year for incoming freshmen, who were offered a Health Science/Medical Technology Pathway-Patient Care. The course included college/university field trips.
This school year the 9th grade pathway course is entitled Introduction to Health Careers. Sophomores are offered a course in Medical Terminology. Arnold said the next steps are to develop 11th grade course offerings and a 12th grade Capstone course.
Offerings planned for next year are: Agriculture and Natural Sciences, Arts, Media and Entertainment, Public Services and Engineering and Agriculture. She added that planning for the 2016-17 pathways includes, “Developing a curriculum for each pathway; collaboration with consortium colleagues; scheduling guest speakers to support pathway development; supporting teacher credentialing and publicizing and promoting career pathways.”
Arnold said pathway goals include enrolling 34 students in each pathway every year, supporting five career connections each year, providing employability skills training, offering industry and entrepreneurship projects and providing a rigorous curriculum and an articulated program of study.
The Board also was updated on district enrollment through August of this year. Assistant Superintendent Donna Rose said that total district enrollment was at 5,531 as of August 28th. That’s an increase of 121 students over last year at this time. She said elementary enrollment stands at 2,607, a decline of 45 students from last year. Isbell Middle School has 1,224 students, an increase of 84. Santa Paula High School is at 1,580, up by 73 students. Renaissance High School has 120 students. That’s an increase of nine over last year.
