Polk County News
Polk County Itemizer-Observer • December 6, 2017 5A
CTE offers new experiences for students
Editor’s note: This is the
second in a series of stories
examining career and tech-
nical education programs.
This week, students and in-
structors offer perspective
about how CTE classes are
changing learning in class-
rooms.
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
DALLAS — Dallas High
School junior Joe Foster said
he’s never experienced a
class like engineering.
A new partnership with
Chemeketa Community
College made the class pos-
sible. Chemeketa instructor
Steve Greco teaches the
class, which provides college
and high school credit to
students.
The handful of students
taking the class have been
busy building robots and
hydraulic models.
“I’ve wanted to get into
engineering to see what it
was about, so I took the en-
gineering class instead of
the all the others they had to
offer. I didn’t really know to
expect. It’s interesting,” Fos-
ter said. “He kind of gives us
a goal, and we try to figure
out how to do it. We work to-
gether.”
Foster said it’s the essen-
tial nature of the teamwork
that separates the class from
others he’s taken during
high school.
He said Greco gives them
challenges and the groups
have to figure out how to
achieve goals, such as build-
ing a robot that can follow
lines or avoid running into
something.
Foster’s teammate, Tristan
White, said unexpected
roadblocks come up and
need creative solutions to
solve them.
“We also have to figure
out how to fix those things.
If there is a problem, we
break it down and try to see
what we can do to fix it,”
White said. “That’s pretty
good for anything that has
to do with engineering. Even
if we are not making robots
in the future, that is good for
anything, really.”
Greco said his goal is to
introduce students to col-
lege-level work and — he
hopes — spark interest in
continued education in the
field at Chemeketa.
“It benefits the students
by exposing them to college-
level material and resources
that many of them would
not likely see in a high
school setting,” he said.
That could be said of all
six of the programs now part
of Dallas High School’s ca-
reer and technical educa-
tion.
In Kelleigh Ratzlaff ’s
Foods for Life culinary class,
a clock ticks down the time
groups have left to prepare
dishes for the judges.
Their mission is to make a
ramen noodle dish using
packaged noodles but not
what Ratzlaff calls “the silver
packets of death” — sauce
flavoring provided in the
packet.
Groups must use a ran-
domly selected source of
protein and a lot of vegeta-
bles to add flavor to their
dishes.
The judges are high
school staff members who
critique each offering on
presentation, taste and cre-
ative use of ingredients.
Ratzlaff said the
“Chopped Challenges” have
a way of inspiring creativity.
JOLENE GUZMAN/ Itemizer-Observer
Tristan White, left, and Joe Foster, at computer, program their robot to perform specific
tasks during Dallas High School’s engineering class last week.
She said groups have experi-
mented with making teriya-
ki sauce or fashioning the
noodles into hamburger
buns or even a pizza.
She said with each chal-
lenge, she sends request for
staff members to judge,
warning that she doesn’t
know what to expect.
Last week, her class was
crowded with volunteer
judges. No one was disap-
pointed in what the students
prepared.
“They blow me away,”
Ratzlaff said.
The Foods for Life class is
introductory level — a
course Ratzlaff hopes all stu-
dents take because it gives
them the basics to cook with
real ingredients and a basis
JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer
A student-prepared poached egg and ramen dish.
to continue learning if they
choose.
This year the program has
the introductory class and
two advanced classes for
those who had taken culi-
nary I and culinary II in the
past. Those classes will be
redesigned with career
training in mind, and rein-
troduced next year.
The food and culture class
hints of what is to come.
Ratzlaff tests students on
their measurements or
“kitchen math” and has
them researching the cul-
tures of the food they are
cooking.
Junior Andy Ban said the
class gives students room to
be creative, a part of the
class he likes and a reason
he may continue next year.
“Next year, there may not
be as much cooking as there
used to be because I will be
focusing on management,
and they have to have their
kitchen math down,” Rat-
zlaff said.
She’ll teach management
procedures and standard
recipes that students seek-
ing a career in the industry
will need to have down.
“More of that restaurant
management, leadership
and communication, I’m
going to be really digging
into that next year,” she said.
Tim Ray, the school’s CTE
coordinator, said they’ve
discussed designing a cap-
stone class, like opening a
bistro or a food truck-like
business that students could
operate.
“We’ve talked about that,
and I think it would be ab-
solutely phenomenal,” Ray
said. “It could be the cap-
stone class that really ties all
of this together. The kids get
the management piece, the
get the leadership piece,
they get all of those things.”
Next week, hear from
school leaders and business
representatives about their
goals for CTE at DHS.
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