From welding to early childhood and a new oil and gas pathway, Ector County ISD eighth-graders Tuesday got to explore class options available to them when they hit high school.
About 2,400 students were expected and this year parents and students from all other grade levels were invited to visit with program representatives from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Students were bussed in to the Odessa College Sports Center from the district’s six middle schools for the 2024 High School Program Fair.
There were about 55 exhibitors.
With these students building their high school schedules now, the fair gave them a chance to talk to high school peers and teachers in the various programs to see what appealed.
There were a couple hundred more students expected this year over last, Executive Director of Career and Technical Education Ryan Merritt said.
“The big change is opening it up to the parents and the community in the evening so that they have a better understanding about the high school programs that students have to choose from,” Merritt said.
He added that it’s important to get parents involved in their children’s high school pathway choices.
“We just want to make sure that we’re doing a good job communicating to parents about the programs that students have to choose from. It’s a lot to put on an eighth-grade student to make a decision about what they want to pursue, both in high school and after high school. We think encouraging parents to participate in the process will be beneficial,” Merritt said.
He added that parents can encourage their child to sign up for courses that might interest them.
“We want the parents to be involved in that process as much as possible,” Merritt said.
He noted that there was representation from the high schools and career and technical satellite campuses like George H.W. New Tech Odessa, Sewell Auto Tech, the Frost Building and Agriculture Farm.
“We also have Odessa College faculty members here. This is all about giving students an opportunity to talk to students (and) teachers, about programs because over the next couple weeks they’re going to start selecting their high school courses, so it’s very timely,” Merritt said.
He added that the district is trying to make this equitable for all middle school students so they’re all seeing the same information. Previously, each campus organized its own event.
“This way, they can see it all in one shot,” Merritt said.
Permian High School students Victor Ramirez and Giselle Franco manned the biomedical table at the Sports Center. They had a preserved pig and a cow eyeball on hand, slides that visitors could look at under a microscope and a mini skeleton to make your own body system.
“It’s pretty cool. It’s really interesting. We do a crime scene investigating the clues, the blood splatters,” Ramirez said. “We get to make our own body system made out of Play-Doh. You learn as you go. You get a cord too and a white coat after you graduate, which is pretty cool. We tell the kids, the more cords you have when you graduate, the cooler you are in high school. We get to dissect a pig, cow eyeball a goat heart. It’s a really interesting class. … It’s a really interesting and like broad class about a lot of going into the science field biology, medical, forensics.”
Justin Young, who teaches oil and gas production and welding, got a lot of interest from eighth-graders about the energy pathway.
“A lot of these kids, whether they plan to or not, are going to end up in the oil and gas industry, whether it’s temporary, or whether they decide to make a career out of it. What we’re trying to do is give them the basic knowledge and skills that they would need to thrive in the industry itself, provide for their families and make a good living for themselves,” Young said.
In oil and gas production 1, students are learning about what petroleum is and how it’s created.
“We’re learning about how we find petroleum, the geology side of it. How we drill for it, how we produce it, what happens after it comes out of the well, are we storing it, are we sending it to the refinery, are we firing it off? And then also we have some equipment coming in so they can learn how to work on pumps, electric motors. They’re going to learn about process control,” Young said.
There are plans to add more courses. Oil and gas production 1 is designed for freshmen.
“It’s going all the way up to oil and gas production 4, which will be a practicum class. We’re still in the process of building those programs,” Young said.
High school social studies specialist Landry McNeese and curriculum specialist Lyneta Mendoza were at the social studies station.
“We’re showing them their career path that they would make throughout high school. So on level, these are the courses that they would take — the IB (International Baccalaureate) pathway, the honors and AP (Advanced Placement) pathway, and then they’re going to take a STAAR test at the end. We’re giving them a quick little quiz on their STAAR test questions that they could be asked and also giving them a way to review for that. Then we’re going to enter them in a drawing later on, depending on if they got all their questions correct,” McNeese said.
STAAR stands for the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness.
Gregory Dominguez, an eighth-grader at Bonham Middle School, was interested in auto and diesel mechanics. He said the fair would be helpful to him and that it was pretty cool.
PHS seniors Georgia McKay, Addison Sperry and Mariah Rogers were at the high school program fair to promote AVID, which stands for Advancement via Individual Determination. The ECISD website says AVID’s systemic approach is designed to support students and educators as they increase schoolwide/districtwide college and career readiness.
It teaches time management, organizational skills, notetaking and other skills.
Sperry said the fair was a good chance to get middle school kids prepared for what’s coming in high school, the clubs they can join and the opportunities available.
McKay said it’s good to show the students their options on electives.
“I think AVID keeps you realistic,” Rogers said. “It will help the kids stay realistic about what’s going on and help them get through it.”
