ZEELAND, Mich. — Zeeland Public Schools students are waking up early Wednesday morning for the start of another school year.
Over the past few years the district has really invested in career-based learning opportunities.
The district added a second year to the educator academy that launched last year, and brand-new this year, a program focused on public safety.
“The majority of the response, was how much they loved working with students within the district," said Sarah Rice, the department chair for career-based learning.
Rice says the course is for juniors and seniors at Zeeland East and West interested in exploring a career in education.
“Their first year of the educator academy program, in which they rotate through our early childhood center in elementary school and a middle school, and then in the second semester, they actually have a placement in whichever level they feel the most comfortable and that they would like to pursue further," Rice said.
Students get to learn what it’s like working in a classroom from pre-K to middle school.
“They're very hands-on working with kids. A lot of the elementary classrooms, if the students are there, they'll be helping to run a math station or a reading group or any of those types of things,” Rice said.
And there’s an opportunity to earn college credit.
“They receive three credit hours through Grand Valley State University through one of their introductory education courses that could also be transferred to other institutions," Rice said.
The educator academy targets an ongoing teacher shortage not only in Zeeland but across the country.
“My biggest hope is to be able to see more and more students want to obviously become educators, because we have such a need for educators and so I would love to have some of my students who left this program become my colleagues," Rice said.
Another critical need is first responders.
The brand-new public safety program intends to fill that gap.
“It'll be heavily focused on fire safety, but it's the students will actually, throughout the year, learn or get a 911 dispatch certification, and so that, as you can imagine, that translates to fire, police, ambulance," said Matt Stolz, Assistant Superintendent at Zeeland Public Schools.
These programs help students get real world job training.
“When you have courses like this, what it allows is to be able to determine, is college an option for me? Should I go to a trade? Is there specific skills that I should have, or maybe I'm going to go into the job force," said Jessica Knoth, Zeeland East High School Principal.
For high school students at Zeeland Public Schools the future is less uncertain thanks to these career-based learning programs.
There’s also career-based learning in health-care, computer science, engineering and journalism. The plan is to continue to grow, expand and even add more programs in the future.