By Josh Troy
Clarksdale Advocate
The Coahoma County School District is celebrating Career Technical Education Month in February by bringing exposure to the program to elementary school students. Coahoma County Jr./Sr. High School students from grades 7 to 12 are doing a CTE Road Show by going to elementary schools to show them different career options. CTE Director Dr. Manika Kemp oversees the Road Show, and CCJSHS Principal Shun Readus attended each event to support the program.
“As one of the activities, the Career Technical Education program department at Coahoma County Jr./Sr. High School decided to do what we’re calling the CTE Road Show,” Kemp said. “Our goal is to have our students introduced to those programs we have in the district and get them to start thinking about careers they may be interested in.” Some CTE programs at the Road Show include educative prep with Dr. Dimarche Khshan, public safety with School Resource Officer Stephen James, Cyber Foundations 1 with Artishi Knox, Cyber Foundation 2 with Jeremiah Brassell, Computer Science with Tamela Fair, and Gaming and Design with Darius Gates.
CTE instructors talked about their different programs. “Cyber Foundation (1) is the beginning,” Knox said. “We are the basic starting off at learning Microsoft, graphic design, and they’re learning budgeting, finance, and we do all of the business office parts.” Cyber Foundation 2 is a continuation of the program. “We back up Cyber Foundation 1, and we take it to the next level,” Brassell said. “It also gets involved in robotics, well-paid design, and stuff like that.” Computer science also deals with technology.
“We do artificial intelligence, robotics, human/computer interactions, programming, coding, and we have a design,” Fair said. Kemp talked about the Gaming and Design program. “That program primarily is involved in gaming and teaches how to do things with reading posters and those things like that,” she said. Children in elementary school had the opportunity to talk with junior high and high school students.
“We’re going to all of the elementary schools. We’re going to spend about an hour allowing those elementary students to come in and visit our booths and ask the students any questions they want to know regarding their programs.” Kemp said the district’s first CTE Road Show brought positive reactions. “I think the students were excited,” she said. “The faculty was excited to do this. The one thing about it is we push for careers in technical education, and we’re trying to bring awareness and exposure to the students in our district.”
