Students want opportunities for hands-on, career-connected learning. In this school district, such pathways have become standard.
Removing barriers for students has become central to the leadership strategy at the Ogden School District in Utah. Ogden High School Principal Shauna Haney says it’s what makes schools like hers unique.
One of the most impactful offerings students have access to is OTECH High School, a satellite school launched in 2024, located on the Ogden-Weber Technical College campus. Students can choose from more than 30 professional programs linked to high-demand careers while remaining enrolled in their home high school.
Haney says it’s important that students discover—and shift—their career aspirations before entering college.
“Some of our kids are going to a university, and some of them are going the technical college route,” Haney says. “We just want to make sure that we have the support for every possible pathway.”
Heather Gerrard, executive director of personalized pathways and CTE for the district, proudly acknowledges that the barrier for entry into OTECH High is practically nonexistent.
“I’m all about open access and reducing barriers,” Gerrard says. “That’s my approach with all of our programs. We don’t have prerequisites, necessarily.”
The enrollment process starts with a conversation between a student and their guidance counselor, who is tasked with ensuring OTECH High is the right choice. The only requirement is that the student plan to enroll or currently be enrolled in a technical college program.
“Most of them are 10th graders who aren’t quite ready for the tech college experience yet, so OTECH takes them in and prepares them for that experience,” she explains.
District-wide, students who enroll in CTE programming are seeing positive outcomes. According to the district’s website, of the more than 3,200 students who enrolled in CTE courses during the 2023-24 school year, 1,173 earned valuable credentials.
These certifications include: Business Communication 1, Digital Business Applications, Engineering Principles 2, Engineering Technology, Hospitality and Tourism, and Automotive Service, Introduction.
Furthermore, over the last five years, between 80-90% of students who concentrated in a CTE pathway (a student who has completed specific requirements in a single CTE program of study) were placed in a postsecondary education, military service or employment within six months after graduation.
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How to replicate it
To build a successful CTE program, Gerrard recommends that leaders build on the strengths and opportunities unique to their district. Teachers can serve as recruiters to get students enrolled.
“Teachers are the most important,” she says. “When teachers build relationships and they reach out to students, they become strategic in recruitment and retention of those students, and their programs will start to grow.”
She also advises leaders to examine the courses they currently offer and ask whether they lead to meaningful post-secondary opportunities.
“If it doesn’t, I’m not saying that there’s not space for it. But you need to be strategic, and if we’re allocating funds and teacher FTE to pay for this program that doesn’t lead to post-secondary opportunities, or it’s not high-wage, high-demand, is this something we should be offering?” Gerrard argues.
Christine Heslop, CTE specialist for the Ogden School District, also says that creativity in course offerings goes a long way, especially for teachers. For example, instead of telling single-team teachers they have to teach multiple courses each year, the Ogden School District offers some CTE courses every other year to alleviate the burden for teachers.
“We built a lot of those programs, and now we’re able to offer them every year,” Heslop says. “But when you’re just starting, that is one of the difficulties you might have.”
Above all, CTE shouldn’t be isolated as a program, Gerrard says. Its value in improving academics should be underscored in a district’s strategic plan.
“One of the reasons we’ve seen the growth that we’ve seen is ensuring that our administrators are aware of CTE and what CTE courses do for students in supporting them in their core academic courses and increasing attendance,” she says.
