Visitors from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the State Board of Education on March 3 toured the Career Technical Education (CTE) programs at Owensville High School (OHS) and Owensville Elementary School (OES), reviewing the distinct success in implementing the career pathways.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Staci Johnson said it was, “weird how the tour came together.”

“I had been in a regional meeting where the deputy commissioner (Kelli Jones) spoke and wanted to come out for site visits,” Johnson said. “I reached out to her and said ‘I’d love to have  you come see the district.’”

February was Career Tech Month and the director for CTE for DESE is Lori Brown.

“Lori said, ‘we really want to see the programs.’ I told her to come as well,” Johnson said.

During another meeting a week later, Johnson said she spoke with President of the State Board of Education, Mary Schrag, about visiting. Schrag sent Kerry Casey, a member of the State Board of Education.

“All three ended up coming on the same day,” Johnson said.

She said the purpose of the visit was to show what the district has accomplished with its CTE programs.

“These are people who are making a lot of really important decisions for school districts and we want them to see what’s happening across the state,” Johnson said. “We wanted to show Career Tech Education because the CTE director was going to be with us, and show other programs we are working on.”

During the tour, the group visited the t-shirt design room, shop class, welding class, auto technology and the green house in the OHS agriculture buildin

Brown said it was cool to see the programs that she’d signed off on.

“She knows our ag teachers by name, but hasn’t met them,” Johnson explained. “Each year, our teachers turn in enhancement grants and matching grants. She’s seen those names and approved the budgets for us. She is the one who would have signed off on our two Limited Access grants for the auto tech and screen printing programs.”

The district received both grants in recent years. The auto tech program received about $300,000 to renovate the facility and purchase equipment, and the screen printing program received about $200,000 for similar purchases and space constraints.

During the tour, students were working in screen printing, welding, and in the green house.

“Seeing the students creating things at the high school level was powerful for them,” Johnson said. “Our kids are doing amazing things that are going to impact them in the future.”

Her favorite interaction during the tour was the OHS greenhouse, where ag students are actively nurturing plants for the plant sale.

“The greenhouse was great, and having the girls to be able to speak about their own program was valuable,” Johnson said. “If we ever do that tour again, I’m going to have students do the tour. It was a big highlight.”

At OES, the group toured the district’s new daycare facility and preschool classrooms.

“At the elementary, we showed off our daycare program that is part of our retention and recruitment efforts, all three preschool classrooms, and ended by going into elementary classrooms and looking at their literacy instruction,” Johnson said. “We wanted them to see the impact of programs.”

Johnson considered the tour successful.

“What I really enjoyed was getting a chance to talk to them about the real impact of the decisions made at the state level, how it impacts our students and teachers,” she said. “We were transparent about our strengths and where we thought we could improve. It was a really good time to build connections with the people who are in Jefferson City.”

The entire tour took about two hours. Amy Quertermous’s Dutch Mill staff and broadcast teacher Tyler Ahring were present for the tour, along with district officials, building administrators, and R-2 board of education member Kari Nolting.