Report Card Part X:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Do you want to create ads for radio and television production, explore graphic arts and combine art, creativity and computers, perfect your culinary skills, work with the earth, plants and nature, transform your love of automobiles into a life career?

Have you always wondered how things work, do you want to design and build your own version of something, are you drawn to medicine and health care and helping others, does business and new technologies intrigue you? Are you interested in the legal system, law enforcement, attorneys and judges?

Answer “yes” to any of these questions, and you might consider a growing facet of public education– Career and Technical Education and Loudoun County Public Schools’ (LCPS) C.S. Monroe Technology Center (MTC) in Leesburg.

Why Career and Technical Education?

The value of an education centered around the five major career clusters taught at MTC is evident if you have ever found your car needs to be repaired, the brick sidewalk outside your home is crumbling, the air conditioning unit at home isn’t cooling or heating properly, you desire a facial, or a new hair do, need advice on gardening and plants for this area, need a television spot to promote your business, or non profit, want some advice and design suggestions for printed materials, are looking for a new and experienced chef for an event, or for catering and restaurant business, need a carpenter or masonry skills for a construction project, or just need HELP with your company’s computers – the knowledge and expertise necessary to answer these and more such questions and issues is taught in one Loudoun County Public School building – C.S. Monroe Technology Center in Leesburg.

And by the way, we Americans regularly and consistently pay trained professionals for all these services.

LCPS CAREER AND TECHINCAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS

The first introduction LCPS students have to Career and Technical Education (CTE) is in middle schools, with the Family and Consumer Science (FACS), Keyboarding and Technology Education classes. Students are required to take one semester each of FACS and Tech Ed in seventh grade as exploratory electives. Sixth grade students are required to take one semester of Keyboarding. Students have the option in eighth grade to takes courses in FACS or Tech Ed as their “self-selected” electives. Today an estimated 11,000 students in all 12 middle schools and the one intermediate school are enrolled in CTE, according to Shirley Bazdar, LCPS Director of Career and Technical Education.

CTE courses are also offered at each of the ten high schools and include courses in Business and Information Technology, FACS, Marketing and Tech Ed.

But the cornerstone and the star of CTE in LCPS is Monroe Technology Center.

The C.S. Monroe Technology Center at 715 Children’s Center Road in Leesburg opened in 1977 as a center-based alternative and vocational education school and in as many years has held annual commencement ceremonies, accommodated a rapidly growing and diverse student population and all the while adapted to new technology, new industries and added corresponding and applicable new programs.

Today, more than 500 students, LCPS juniors and seniors attend MTC, as the school is now more commonly known. Principal Wagner Grier leads the school and staff of almost 50 teachers, aides and support staff.

HISTORY

LCPS first began a vocational education program in 1966 when a wing, financed as part of a federal grant, was added to Loudoun County High School in Leesburg, according to Shirley Bazdar, LCPS Director of Career and Technical Education. That program expanded to Broad Run High School and Loudoun Valley High School before Monroe opened in 1977 as a center to serve the four Loudoun high schools–and a then much smaller high school population.

Monroe Technology Center was named in honor of longtime Loudoun teacher and principal Charles S. Monroe. Monroe taught at various Loudoun schools, was principal of Leesburg High School–now Loudoun County High School–until retirement in 1962. LCPS first vocational technology classes in agriculture, mechanics and home economics were held at LCHS. Monroe is credited with planting the seed for the first vocational school in the county.

Director Bazdar also provided some history on CTE programs in the United States. CTE began in the early 1900s when the United States was at war, and the impetus to train a highly skilled workforce was crucial.

The passage of the Smith-Hughes Act, known then as the Vocational Education Act of 1917, represented national approval of vocational education in the public schools. At the time the legislation focused on agriculture, trades and industries and home economics. President Woodrow Wilson appointed the commission to study national aid to vocational education and using the 1910 Census Report, the commission determined that over 12 million males and females were engaged in agriculture, and over 14 million were engaged in manufacturing. The commission report cautioned, however, that less than one percent of those individuals had adequate training.

CTE TODAY

Today, Loudoun County Public School juniors and seniors may choose from MTC’s five Career Clusters and associated cluster programs that include:

• Communications, Art and Media

• Computer and Digital Animation
• Graphics Communication
• Television Production/Digital Moviemaking

• Human and Environmental Services

• Cosmetology
• Nail Design
• Culinary Arts
• Greenhouse/Floriculture
• Nursery/Landscape

• Health and Public Services

• Administration of Justice
• Health and Medical Services
• EMT/Fire fighter
• Practical Nursing
• Radiology

• Engineering and Industrial Technologies

• Auto Services
• Collision Repairs
• Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Services
• Masonry
• Welding
• Building Construction

• Information Technology

• Computer Integrated Engineering and Design (CIED)
• Computer Network Administration
• Computer Systems Technology

Earlier this year, MTC Assistant Principal Kim Thomas spoke at a Loudoun Education Alliance of Parents (LEAP) meeting about the school and its mission.

Today, MTC offers more than 25 programs in these five clusters. All MTC courses carry three high school credits, representing elective courses. MTC's enrollment at approximately 500 students finds the facility at capacity and all the while the application process has become more competitive as interest and course offerings expand.

Many of the MTC programs include industry certifications or college credit upon completion. Introduction to Health and Medical Sciences and Administration of Justice courses were added in recent years. Many of the MTC course qualify as dual enrollment and credits at Northern Virginia Community College.

In July 2008, MTC received the stellar designation as one of seven Governor’s Career and Technical Academies in Virginia. Students wishing to enroll in the Governors Career and Technical Academy programs at MTC are required to complete NVCC’s placement exam, COMPASS.

The Governors Career and Technical Academy designation with the requisite emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) requires a greater focus on literacy in those areas of study. More on the Governor’s Career and Technical Academy and the proposed Monroe Advanced Technology Academy (MATA) next week.

SCHEDULES AT MTC

Courses at MTC can take one or two years to complete, and are taught on an alternating-day schedule. Student’s alternate days between MTC and their home school where students are enrolled in general education classes. Students may remain rooted in home school extracurricular activities and school events as well as membership in MTC student organizations and clubs including Skills USA, FCCLA, Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA), and Future Farmers of America as well as MTC events, local, state and national competitions and projects.

Students attend MTC all day every other day–A and B days of alternating students, which MTC Principal Wagner Grier explained allows for more concentrated instruction time. Transportation is provided. Buses from the 10 high schools in the LCPS system transport MTC students to and from their home school. A hot lunch is served every day at MTC, courtesy Loudoun County High School cafeteria.

A misplaced stigma once associated with the term “vocational” education once hampered student interest in Monroe Technology Center, but not anymore. Students who complete the MTC career programs receive hands on training in trades, such as automotive, building and construction, and technical oriented MTC student often also graduate with a LCPS high school diploma and a professional level certification in their field of study.

More than 80 percent of recent MTC’s Career and Technical Education students continue their education at either two or four year colleges.